Verizon Raising Unlimited Data Prices By $20 On May 15 For Some

[Megalith]

If I’m reading this correctly, those with unlimited data who managed to dodge the fee increase last year are now forced to face those higher costs. At this rate, you’ll have to sign over your youngest child to keep unlimited data with Verizon.

On November 15 of last year, Verizon raised unlimited data plan pricing by $20, from $29.99 to $49.99. According to sources of ours, that was only “phase 1” of Big Red’s plan to price unlimited data users out of their plans and features and into a tiered option. We still have two more phases to go, with the next starting next month. “Phase 2” will kick off on May 15 as a similar $20 increase to what we saw in November for lines that are out of contract that weren’t affected by the initial November 15 price increase.

 

[fdiaz78]

Imagine you signing a contract and the other party keeps causing grief to force you to break the contract. They are acting in bad faith and need to justify why they need to raise your bill an extra 220 plus taxes a year.

 

[tybert7]

I don't have sympathy for unlimited Verizon users who don't specifically need their extended network. In many cities sprint and tmobile offer unlimited at lower prices and it works just fine. If people choose not to switch away from Verizon when they have a viable option to, then let them suffer.

 

[dandirk]

Imagine you signing a contract and the other party keeps causing grief to force you to break the contract. They are acting in bad faith and need to justify why they need to raise your bill an extra 220 plus taxes a year.

As much as I dislike most Verizon policies... expecting to be locked into a price/service for eternity is asinine.

They are not acting in bad faith imo (in this case). They ended the unlimited plan over 4 years ago... That would be 2+ full contract periods, seems reasonable to me. They could have done this 2 years ago.

Sure you are free to complain about pricing, plan details etc. But raising prices on a defunct plan from 4 years ago to get customers to switch is actually pretty decent of them. They could have just automatically converted the accounts to 3GB or something, this way those insane data users are STILL getting a deal (Basically any usage over 5GB is saving them money) by paying the raised cost.

Also don't pretend those still on the grandfather plan are victims. Unless you are still using the same phone from 4 years ago you had to perform a very specific set of actions to keep your unlimited plan when getting a new device (unless BYOD which was not as popular back then). I would say this was sort of a loop hole. In order to get a new contract phone you had to upgrade another line, then transfer the phone to your line... then cancel the internet service on the new line. Now I have NO problem with that loop hole, I just think you lose any right to act as the victim...

Accept things change... ME I didn't like Verizon's pricing, policies etc so I switched.

 

[BeavermanA]

The specific details are that Verizon is “increasing the price of other data features with unlimited allowances $20 per month for lines that are out of contract.” Think unlimited hotspot or an older legacy plan that weren’t hit the first time around.

Still says it only applies to lines out of contract?

Anxious as to what phase 3 will be though. Probably $20 increase contract or not, opt out if you don't like it. Have to be so few of us that still have unlimited and avoided the hike.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

At this point people trying to keep unlimited data are just gaming the system.

IMHO, unlimited data should be replaced with metered data at ~$10 per GB on all carriers, regardless of grandfathered status.

 

[LightningCrash]

I'd pay it. $10/GB is insane.

 

[BeavermanA]

At this point people trying to keep unlimited data are just gaming the system.

IMHO, unlimited data should be replaced with metered data at ~$10 per GB on all carriers, regardless of grandfathered status.

Own a lot of carrier stock? Verizon posted a $4.04 billion Q3 profit. Why would you want and advocate paying $10/gb to increase their profits?

Are you pro landline caps/tiers/overages/absurd prices as well?

 

[ChadD]

$10 a GB I think Zara is joking guys. lol
$10 GB is fine, as long as Netflix promises to only stream 4k content to Verizon customers with no option to down grade.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

$10 a GB I think Zara is joking guys. lol

Nope, I'm not.

I feel very strongly that excessive data use on a limited mobile spectrum is abusive. We should all be doing all of our heavy stuff on wired land based internet, and only using mobile data when absolutely necessary.

Music streaming I can kind of see, but other than that, there should not be be any reason under any circumstance to stream Netflix, or any other video source, or heavy data use over mobile networks.

Mobile data should be treated as a secondary data source only to be used for light stuff, when you are on the move.

$10/GB is great. This is what I pay on Fi. I'm a heavy phone user, on it all the time, but through efficient use of WiFi in the office and at home I only use about a one gig a month of mobile data, which makes my overall cell phone bill $30 per month, even with two devices, my Nexus 5x and my 2013 Nexus Tablet connected to my plan.

Own a lot of carrier stock? Verizon posted a $4.04 billion Q3 profit. Why would you want and advocate paying $10/gb to increase their profits?

I'm not advocating increasing their profits. I'm advocating cutting your data use and paying them the same amount of data, at $10 per GB Essentially, I see metered mobile data as a way to disincentivize its heavy use and shift more data to landlines, and that IMHO, is a very very good thing, as it reduces use of the mobile spectrum and frees it up for the things you really NEED to use mobile spectrum for.

Are you pro landline caps/tiers/overages/absurd prices as well?

Nope, there are very big differences between wireless and landlines. Landline bandwidth is only limited by the number of wires/fibers you are willing to draw. Within reason (until you fill all space on the planet with cabling) landline bandwidth is potentially limitless.

Mobile spectrum - on the other hand - is a fixed quantity. Once you use it all, you can't add more. Heavy data use on mobile networks for things like downloads/torrents/streaming video is abusive, plane and simple, as even with good QoS it slows down people who use mobile data the right way, for occasional email/web and maybe some music on the go, and do all their heavy lifting over their landline Ethernet, like you are supposed to.

 

[LightningCrash]

Mobile spectrum - on the other hand - is a fixed quantity. Once you use it all, you can't add more. Heavy data use on mobile networks for things like downloads/torrents/streaming video is abusive, plane and simple, as even with good QoS it slows down people who use mobile data the right way, for occasional email/web and maybe some music on the go, and do all their heavy lifting over their landline Ethernet, like you are supposed to.

So by selling an unlimited plan, the carriers are promoting abusive behavior against their own interests.

 

[BeavermanA]

Nope, I'm not.

I feel very strongly that excessive data use on a limited mobile spectrum is abusive. We should all be doing all of our heavy stuff on wired land based internet, and only using mobile data when absolutely necessary.

Music streaming I can kind of see, but other than that, there should not be be any reason under any circumstance to stream Netflix, or any other video source, or heavy data use over mobile networks.

Mobile data should be treated as a secondary data source only to be used for light stuff, when you are on the move.

$10/GB is great. This is what I pay on Fi. I'm a heavy phone user, on it all the time, but through efficient use of WiFi in the office and at home I only use about a one gig a month of mobile data, which makes my overall cell phone bill $30 per month, even with two devices, my Nexus 5x and my 2013 Nexus Tablet connected to my plan.




I'm not advocating increasing their profits. I'm advocating cutting your data use and paying them the same amount of data, at $10 per GB Essentially, I see metered mobile data as a way to disincentivize its heavy use and shift more data to landlines, and that IMHO, is a very very good thing, as it reduces use of the mobile spectrum and frees it up for the things you really NEED to use mobile spectrum for.



Nope, there are very big differences between wireless and landlines. Landline bandwidth is only limited by the number of wires/fibers you are willing to draw. Within reason (until you fill all space on the planet with cabling) landline bandwidth is potentially limitless.

Mobile spectrum - on the other hand - is a fixed quantity. Once you use it all, you can't add more. Heavy data use on mobile networks for things like downloads/torrents/streaming video is abusive, plane and simple, as even with good QoS it slows down people who use mobile data the right way, for occasional email/web and maybe some music on the go, and do all their heavy lifting over their landline Ethernet, like you are supposed to.

I think a lot can depend on where you are. If you're in a dense population, obviously wireless can become quickly overloaded. And chances are you have decent, if not great, landline internet available to you.

Unfortunately in rural areas, your only choice is often terrible DSL or nothing. LTE could provide a good amount of these people with internet speeds considered acceptable today. $10/gb is excessive, but a lot of people would probably pay $80+/mo to have unlimited LTE. Or even a more reasonable cap like 300gb + $10/50gb like some landlines, if made available.

I seriously get 130mbps/35mbps on my phone. Tether that to my router. Not paying our town's monopoly of internet & phone $80/mo for a measly 6mbps/784kbps. That's a joke.

Would be fine wirth Verizon throttling me to like 20mbps during peak times if needed, maybe doing unlimited data only during 11pm-5am or something. Willing to work with it, understand there are other customers paying the same or more.

 

[ChadD]

Nope, I'm not.

I feel very strongly that excessive data use on a limited mobile spectrum is abusive. We should all be doing all of our heavy stuff on wired land based internet, and only using mobile data when absolutely necessary.

Music streaming I can kind of see, but other than that, there should not be be any reason under any circumstance to stream Netflix, or any other video source, or heavy data use over mobile networks.

Mobile data should be treated as a secondary data source only to be used for light stuff, when you are on the move.

$10/GB is great. This is what I pay on Fi. I'm a heavy phone user, on it all the time, but through efficient use of WiFi in the office and at home I only use about a one gig a month of mobile data, which makes my overall cell phone bill $30 per month, even with two devices, my Nexus 5x and my 2013 Nexus Tablet connected to my plan.

I'm Canadian and our networks aren't even as dense as most areas in the US. (in general outside of a small handful of large pop centers our towers have fewer subs connected at once)... anyway just have to say. I did some work years back in the mobile industry and was getting residuals for a patent that was used by RIM for a long time. Anyway long story short... they have the bandwidth. Its not an issue. There is no case where the "our network can't handle the load" really holds any water. Even when I was working with old TDMA (time dilation multiple access) code bandwidth was in fact quite good... TDMA type packet encoding is still used in things like Wimax and bluetooth. Most of the carriers however are now on CDMA derived networks (4g). The server loads are low, and to be frank the carriers for the most part don't use very intelligent server setups, they are in very few cases setup to spin up or cycle down extra servers. Frankly most of the major networks are just not good at spending money on proper infrastructure. Even so I highly doubt they are ever really maxing out their capabilities to a point where there is any need to restrict customer data flow. For the most part due to the stupid nature of their server setups whether they have 100 customers using 20kb/s a second or 1000 using 1mb/s isn't even relevant as it still isn't enough load to cost them more then a trifle in extra electricity as they aren't spinning anything extra to handle the load and the load isn't high enough to spike cooling costs.

The argument about network load is BS frankly... nothing but an excuse to make more profit. From experience I know 4g type speeds where capable on most NA networks 15+ years ago... I know cause I helped one of the Canadian Bigs switch from a TDMA to a GSM2 setup 15 years back, and at the time they where not selling data really at all outside of an early Blackberry network. Even at that time though with that gear with a Dev setup I could push enough bandwidth that they could have been streaming music to 100s of customers per tower with almost no added load costs. At this point with newer CDMA (code division) based network standards they can do 10x that, again with almost no added costs, as the servers are already running.

If a carrier had a truly great setup with a smart server setup, you could argue lower traffic would save on costs. As it stands most have servers always running that are capable of handling a max amount of bandwidth, and if its running at max or 50% of max... the costs to the carrier are almost identical.

As for the idea that the network will slow down under load... you are proving the point that their setup is subpar if that is happening where you are. For the amount of $ paid in the US and where I am in Canada ALL the Canadian carriers are posting stupid huge profits the last 3-4 years. There is zero excuse for not being able to invest in proper back bone. The issue is FROM the tower to the backbones... not from the device to the tower... the spectrum isn't the issue, frankly the spectrum can handle 10x what any of the carriers are pushing right now if they where to adopt the latest greatest in wireless standards of compression ect... however nothing has changed since I stopped working in that field 15 years ago all the carriers in NA are 10 or so years behind... cause switching the number of towers we have here is costly. When I worked on the TDMA network gear here... I kid you not some of it was from the 80s. lol

 

[fdiaz78]

At this point people trying to keep unlimited data are just gaming the system.

IMHO, unlimited data should be replaced with metered data at ~$10 per GB on all carriers, regardless of grandfathered status.

Ridiculous blanket statement. I am on the unlimited plan and barely use 10 gigs a month but have gone over a few random times. A tier system is simply a way to extract more profit from customers. I signed a contract for unlimited data years ago and I expect my carrier to honor it without pulling some shady shit to move me to another plan with less data and more money. It's BS.

 

[Deleted whining member 223597]

Ridiculous blanket statement. I am on the unlimited plan and barely use 10 gigs a month but have gone over a few random times. A tier system is simply a way to extract more profit from customers. I signed a contract for unlimited data years ago and I expect my carrier to honor it without pulling some shady shit to move me to another plan with less data and more money. It's BS.

That contract was for 2 years, not the next 50.

 

[LightningCrash]

That contract was for 2 years, not the next 50.

Quote from his contract then.

 

[twonunpackmule]

I'm with AT&T, so none of this applies to me. However, to suggest "bandwith" is limited by some dangerous degree is incredibly silly. Verizon is only doing this to increase profit, not protect non-unlimited user status. Recently, AT&T has increased their data limit for unlimited users. I now get 23gb a month before throttle. You know, I actually respect that. That's not awful. It use to be where I got throttled for using over 3gb when the standard plan was 5gb. Now, some might not understand why I stream Netflix or Hulu via my mobile phone, but I live in Alaska for 6-7 months out of the year. The internet is 15/1. It takes days to install a large game via Steam. I also have to make sure nothing is connected while I stream. So, LTE provides me with faster internet than I get locally. Now, when I'm in Baltimore for the other 6-7, I use Fios with my 80/80.