Verizon CEO: Unlimited Data Plans Aren't Sustainable

H

HardOCP News

[H] News
Joined
Dec 31, 1969
Messages
0
I wish someone attending the conference would have just stood up and asked "how do your competitors do it?"

As the wireless world moves toward delivering more video and becomes the center of communication, unlimited offerings aren't sustainable, McAdam said on Tuesday during an investor conference. "With unlimited, it's the physics that breaks it," he said. "If you allow unlimited usage, you just run out of gas."
Click to expand...
 
Using my very special, secret CEO translation tool.

As the wireless world moves toward delivering more video and becomes the center of communication, unlimited offerings aren't sustainable, McAdam said on Tuesday during an investor conference. "With unlimited, it's the dollars that break it," he said. "If you allow unlimited usage, you just run out of money. We make more money by charging for data in tiers. Fuck you and how you'd like to use your phone, this is about us making more money. So go fuck yourself and spend some more money with Verizon. Capiche?"
 
Data isn't like natural resources. You don't run out of the connectivity. All you need is electricity to power the towers. The infrastructure is already put in place. All they need is $ for expansion, upgrades, and maintenance. Getting a bit greedy taking away unlimited, being the most expensive out of the 4 major carriers, and now making such statements. It's not like once they implement Unlimited data that everyone and their mothers will go to Verizon to switch on over to unlimited and start using terabytes of data. I myself have unlimited with T-Mobile and I hardly use 4GB/month. I just hate the fact that I have to worry about hitting my limit streaming things, and just for the sake of simplicity, I know I don't have to worry. $ is still going to be made regardless. You can charge up the @$$, and have fewer subscribers, or charge a lil less and have more flock to you. In the end it shouldn't all be about funding the C** executives' fat paychecks.
 
Running out of gas? If anything its running out of ways to squeeze more money per customer.
 
I wonder if his compensation as CEO is sustainable? I mean, they can trim the fat starting right there. ;)
 
I think he probably has a point, though I am not a mobile wireless expert so I am not going to comment if it's possible or not.

What ultimately makes me call bullshit on Verizon and AT&T is their actions don't match up with their reasoning...

When they had unlimited plans, they limited/charged for tethering access. This made sense, one CAN assume they planned capacity of unlimited access based on the limits of the devices and network (aka slow 3g no streaming, small screens, less HDD space etc) vs attaching a laptop to a phone/modem. I personally think this was a reasonable upgrade for unlimited mobile connection.

Yet when they went to tiered pricing they CONTINUE to charge extra for tethering, even though their pricing model basically took care of their issue with tethering by its very nature... paying for what you use.

Pretty much same thing with the "Share Everything" plans. Instead of just pooling data across all devices in a family plan they decided to reverse their pricing structure, resulting in $40 monthly connection fees for a smart phone. What this really did was cut down their cost of partner discounts that many get from their employer on the "plan" cost since now plans are much less moving the charges to "Access fees" where the discount doesn't apply. Not only that they now can charge basically MORE for services that are used less and less... which is calls and text because the access fee has increased 400%.


If Verizon was more open and honest I wouldn't have such an issue... "You guys are using a lot of data, gotta raise prices on data to cover" etc... Not these misdirection tricks that just put a fool taste in my mouth, that they are trying to put one over me rather then give a honest value service.
 
JL6speed said:
Data isn't like natural resources. You don't run out of the connectivity. All you need is electricity to power the towers. The infrastructure is already put in place. All they need is $ for expansion, upgrades, and maintenance. Getting a bit greedy taking away unlimited, being the most expensive out of the 4 major carriers, and now making such statements. It's not like once they implement Unlimited data that everyone and their mothers will go to Verizon to switch on over to unlimited and start using terabytes of data. I myself have unlimited with T-Mobile and I hardly use 4GB/month. I just hate the fact that I have to worry about hitting my limit streaming things, and just for the sake of simplicity, I know I don't have to worry. $ is still going to be made regardless. You can charge up the @$$, and have fewer subscribers, or charge a lil less and have more flock to you. In the end it shouldn't all be about funding the C** executives' fat paychecks.
Click to expand...

Data can be argued to be the only finite, limited and permanently renewable resource.

For every second that any system is not at full capacity, what is used is all that was utilized... and what was unused capacity is forever lost.

Stop wasting Data, Verizon.
 
Actually by not allowing it they lock in their existing unlimited data customers ... it is only if ATT and Verizon stop grandfathering their original data customers with unlimited that they will have an issue ... ATT/Verizon have the largest networks and widest selection of phones usually ... TMobile and Sprint have to offer pricing or feature incentives because otherwise they can't compete with the other two much larger companies ... I won't leave ATT since I don't want to give up my unlimited data (I am sure there are other customers in both services that are in the same boat)
 
In plain English the plans aren't sustainable to keep profit margins as high as possible.
 
My FIOS has yet to run out of gas... guess I need to fill my cell phone up...
 
I can assure you there is not likely a capacity issue... You have to realize, the kind of speeds verizon offers with their LTE, it's faster than the majority of people's home ISP. So yes, I'm pretty certain they can deliver. If anything, they can throttle the speeds per device, which they currently capped really high or is the literal limit. Does one really need a 50-70mbps connection to stream a vid? Not likely. I can do fine at home when I only had 24mbps down. With more $ they make, they can implement more towers and fund their infrastructure to better offset the load balance.

And as for tethering, charging for it is just dumb. First off, it's a native capability in Android. Secondly, the data used is still off your account. Do ISPs charge you more $ per month if you have more laptops / desktops at home? No.
 
JL6speed said:
I can assure you there is not likely a capacity issue... You have to realize, the kind of speeds verizon offers with their LTE, it's faster than the majority of people's home ISP. So yes, I'm pretty certain they can deliver. If anything, they can throttle the speeds per device, which they currently capped really high or is the literal limit. Does one really need a 50-70mbps connection to stream a vid? Not likely. I can do fine at home when I only had 24mbps down. With more $ they make, they can implement more towers and fund their infrastructure to better offset the load balance.

And as for tethering, charging for it is just dumb. First off, it's a native capability in Android. Secondly, the data used is still off your account. Do ISPs charge you more $ per month if you have more laptops / desktops at home? No.
Click to expand...

I agree with your first point... Though maybe version doesn't want to end up like AT&T in New York or San Fran with speeds going down the tubes due to influx of iphones (not that the situation will arise like that again).

As for ISP's trying to charge per device... They did at one point, ISPs would try and block or prevent use of routers requiring people to buy their multiple static IP plans. Though I am pretty sure the FCC came down hard on that one back in the day.
 
Its a shame that everybody thinks data pipelines can't be saturated, wired or wireless...oh just roll out new towers and more equipment, etc., etc.... Problem is nobody wants to pay for the upgrades and infrastructures. The customers scream if you try and raise the rates and companies don't want to eat those huge costs without the extra revenue. And no I'm not just talking about the big phone telcos.
 
There's only so many frequencies available and so much bandwidth you can shove through each frequency. Can you fill up the airwaves/run out in a given area...yes. Do I think we're currently saturating the system such that they can't offer unlimited? Maybe in some densely populated areas, but otherwise no.

Perhaps they can offer an unlimited except in the Bay Area/LA/New York area plan if this is their argument.
 
dandirk said:
Yet when they went to tiered pricing they CONTINUE to charge extra for tethering, even though their pricing model basically took care of their issue with tethering by its very nature... paying for what you use.
Click to expand...

Huh? If I drop my unlimited data plan and move to a tiered plan with verizon, I get tethering for free. If I keep it, I don't.
 
JL6speed said:
Data isn't like natural resources. You don't run out of the connectivity. All you need is electricity to power the towers. The infrastructure is already put in place. All they need is $ for expansion, upgrades, and maintenance. Getting a bit greedy taking away unlimited, being the most expensive out of the 4 major carriers, and now making such statements. It's not like once they implement Unlimited data that everyone and their mothers will go to Verizon to switch on over to unlimited and start using terabytes of data. I myself have unlimited with T-Mobile and I hardly use 4GB/month. I just hate the fact that I have to worry about hitting my limit streaming things, and just for the sake of simplicity, I know I don't have to worry. $ is still going to be made regardless. You can charge up the @$$, and have fewer subscribers, or charge a lil less and have more flock to you. In the end it shouldn't all be about funding the C** executives' fat paychecks.
Click to expand...

This is all going to come to a head around 2020 when 5G starts rolling out. There's no way existing models will survive when phones are getting up to 1gps downstream and people's monthly data caps are getting eclipsed in a few hours of usage.
 
Tawnos said:
Huh? If I drop my unlimited data plan and move to a tiered plan with verizon, I get tethering for free. If I keep it, I don't.
Click to expand...

If you use android, you could just flash an AOSP/AOKP rom and you'd have tethering. There are many ways to bypass this absurdity. Main reason your tethering is controlled is because you are tethering with Verizon's app vs the OS itself.
 
Tawnos said:
Huh? If I drop my unlimited data plan and move to a tiered plan with verizon, I get tethering for free. If I keep it, I don't.
Click to expand...

You are right! Well at least they are making some sense there.

When the share everything plan first came out they still charged for tethering for plans under 6GB I think... they then would throw in some data basically making it a wash for the 6GB plan.
 
JL6speed said:
If you use android, you could just flash an AOSP/AOKP rom and you'd have tethering. There are many ways to bypass this absurdity. Main reason your tethering is controlled is because you are tethering with Verizon's app vs the OS itself.
Click to expand...

That is techincally not really true... Verizon just put a check in the native tethering app so it would prompt you to buy tethering service before it could be used.

So at least Verizon didn't charge you to use a crappy Verizon tether app lol.
 
BobSutan said:
This is all going to come to a head around 2020 when 5G starts rolling out. There's no way existing models will survive when phones are getting up to 1gps downstream and people's monthly data caps are getting eclipsed in a few hours of usage.
Click to expand...

The amt of data you download for watching a video stays the same, regardless if you download at 1gbps or 5mbps. You could argue that one can view more videos since there would be almost no lag time between downloads, but I doubt the user is queuing up 100 vids at one sitting to watch over the next couple hours just to hit the cap. Also the phone isn't exactly in need of streaming at 1080 all the time, due to screen size, so I doubt limits would be an issue.

The real issue is there are those that are abusing the infrastructure by tethering and torrenting. Which I don't have a problem w/ service providers throttling a mobile device customer after they hit a ridiculous amount of data compared to the general population.
 
dandirk said:
That is techincally not really true... Verizon just put a check in the native tethering app so it would prompt you to buy tethering service before it could be used.

So at least Verizon didn't charge you to use a crappy Verizon tether app lol.
Click to expand...

You get upsell messages regarding paying for tethering because when you surf the web, the request comes from your browser and they have ways to check for that. All you need to do is change your user agent. It's the same on T-Mobile and I don't see how it is much different on Verizon. Tethering itself is a native capability of Android (can't speak the same for Apple as I'm not sure how theirs works), but like I said, using their proprietary app gives them control on allowing you to tether or not even though it's the same connection. You are taking your phone's internet and sharing it to another device; much like how you pay for internet at home and splitting it with a router.
 
Pretty sure I read an article that debunked all of this already. The analogy he used in the article was cars driving on the highway. Let's say car 1 can only do 5mbps and car 2 can do 50mbps. What these carriers want you to believe that 50mbps cars destroy there network. It is a complete lie because each car only takes up one lane of traffic. The only thing they have to worry about is if to many cars all come on the road and stay on the road at the same time. So as long as the customers say the same they could easily give everyone unlimited data and be perfectly fine.

I understand the arguement about if people get suddenly get no limit they will be going crazy all the time. Well that same point could be made now if all of these 2gb users suddendly happen to get on and download something at the same time.
 
Just further solidifies my decision to go to a pre paid cheapest plan possible as soon as my contract expires. So done with the premium services that frankly, kind of suck. $180+ dollars a month for my wife's and my iphones. It's just ridiculous what these companies think their products are worth.

I think people are waking up and soon all their bandwidth issues will be solved :)
 
I will stay with Verizon as long as my wife and I get to keep our unlimited data. Some months we do not use all that much. Other months, if we travel a lot, we use quite a bit. We keep the unlimited data just in case we start using a program/product that requires a lot of data, we will be covered.
 
Fuck Verizon and their prices. I can deal with meh service every once in awhile for unlimited data on T-Mobile for $30 a month.
 
The day Verizon ends unlimited data will be my last with them. My grandfathered unlimited data plan is the only reason I'm still with Verizon.
 
dandirk said:
I agree with your first point... Though maybe version doesn't want to end up like AT&T in New York or San Fran with speeds going down the tubes due to influx of iphones (not that the situation will arise like that again).

As for ISP's trying to charge per device... They did at one point, ISPs would try and block or prevent use of routers requiring people to buy their multiple static IP plans. Though I am pretty sure the FCC came down hard on that one back in the day.
Click to expand...

They tried and failed. All that was required to get around that absurdity was to clone the MAC address on the computer that the account was signed up for onto your router.

And if you had a stupid USB modem, all you had to do was share out your Internet connection over your LAN.

Totally idiotic is what it was.
 
jflail2 said:
Using my very special, secret CEO translation tool.

As the wireless world moves toward delivering more video and becomes the center of communication, unlimited offerings aren't sustainable, McAdam said on Tuesday during an investor conference. "With unlimited, it's the dollars that break it," he said. "If you allow unlimited usage, you just run out of money. We make more money by charging for data in tiers. Fuck you and how you'd like to use your phone, this is about us making more money. So go fuck yourself and spend some more money with Verizon. Capiche?"
Click to expand...

It's a message to wireless carriers that do offer unlimited data. Like Sprint and T-Mobile which offer unlimited data, seems to be gaining ground on Verizon and AT&T. He's basically telling them to stop their unlimited service, and join up with them to offer limited and profitable data connections. Even though the only reason T-Mobile and Sprint are gaining ground is because they continue to offer unlimited data.

Basically Verizon is feeling the squeeze, and are giving unlimited data carriers an offer.
 
As for this lame tired data crap, I am pretty much planning on dropping my data plan once my contract is over.

I use almost no data on my cell phone plan as it is since most places I use data I am hooked up to wireless.

The price they are charging is just stupid, and I could do with the money saved by not paying for their crap overpriced data plans.
 
If bandwidth were truly and issue, they would have implemented QoS, not data caps. Data caps do nothing (directly) to affect bandwidth usage. They can still be completely oversubscribed and saturated in one area while everyone is trying to stream Youtube and it does nothing for me if I want to download something at 20+ Mb/s at 2AM because no one else is using the network at that time.

Data tiers/caps are nothing more than a money grab and a way to indirectly keep people from using too much of their infrastructure. If anything, it would make more sense to charge for certain speeds instead of caps. Because really.. 20+ Mb/s on a phone is total overkill for 90% of users. I pull 20-30 Mb/s at my home consistantly, which is faster than my cable ISP. I'm considering dropping them for a month just to get my introductory rate back if I can't negotiate it back down again.

I just re-newed my contract and kept unlimted data though (transferred upgrade to my mom's 2GB line to purchase, then put my SIM in it when it arrived). So I'm locked in with unlimited data for another 2 years. If they decided to force me out of it and break the terms/contract, then I'll be happy to leave them (ETF free) and use my shiny new phones on T-Mobile (most Verizon LTE phones are GSM/HSPA+ capable now).
 
T4rd said:
If bandwidth were truly and issue, they would have implemented QoS, not data caps. Data caps do nothing (directly) to affect bandwidth usage. They can still be completely oversubscribed and saturated in one area while everyone is trying to stream Youtube and it does nothing for me if I want to download something at 20+ Mb/s at 2AM because no one else is using the network at that time.

Data tiers/caps are nothing more than a money grab and a way to indirectly keep people from using too much of their infrastructure. If anything, it would make more sense to charge for certain speeds instead of caps. Because really.. 20+ Mb/s on a phone is total overkill for 90% of users. I pull 20-30 Mb/s at my home consistantly, which is faster than my cable ISP. I'm considering dropping them for a month just to get my introductory rate back if I can't negotiate it back down again.

I just re-newed my contract and kept unlimted data though (transferred upgrade to my mom's 2GB line to purchase, then put my SIM in it when it arrived). So I'm locked in with unlimited data for another 2 years. If they decided to force me out of it and break the terms/contract, then I'll be happy to leave them (ETF free) and use my shiny new phones on T-Mobile (most Verizon LTE phones are GSM/HSPA+ capable now).
Click to expand...

TMOBILE uses QoS. Anything like YouTube gets forced through the older network and not the LTE one. Fine print in the forms.
 
Say what you want, Verizon is the biggest carrier in the US, the most people feel it is worth it to pay more for their lower limits than to pay less for unlimited. So whatever the case he has a point and it's working for them.
 
F him.

I am switching to t-mobil beginning of 2014. I have unlimited on Verizon, but the cost is very limiting. I can get 3 smart phones with 2.5gb data plans for the same price I am paying for 1 smartphone and 1 dumb phone.

If they want my business again,. they can cut their costs.
 
CEO's are always quick to fuck over the customer.

wireless data should be getting cheaper and more plentiful. Not this bullshit. Use those massive profits and build the infrastructure.
 
Spidey329 said:
TMOBILE uses QoS. Anything like YouTube gets forced through the older network and not the LTE one. Fine print in the forms.
Click to expand...

That's fine because HSPA+ is as fast as LTE a lot of times and I would still prefer that over having a hard cap on my data.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top