Verizon Will Ban Unlimited Data Plan Transfers on Thursday

[ShinyTop]

The massively higher charges line is the one that raised the BS meter for me. Very few people will face higher charges. And any that do are still asking for others to foot their bill. Metered billing of one type or another is the only fair way to price data. The family plan is much better than I had feared.

[mkempton]

I ended up keeping my Family Share 700 plan. Ordered over the phone after the agent looked to see if there was any way to backdate my order to last Thursday, but to no avail. . .guess I'll see how much I go over each month and pay it. Still cheaper than the $40-50 more I'd pay on ShareItAll.

[fraydog]

The problem is when data usage explodes in the future. Do you think you will use the same data usage two years from now that you will use now? For most people, they will use more in the future.

[mkempton]

Oh, I know that, but I am not committed to the 2GB plan for two years. I can change that at any time. Do you think anyone will be on the unlimited plan in two years? My money says probably not. Once the last one expires 24 months from now, VZW will be putting them on something else.

[regor3]

I'm not buying the argument that data use will increase expotentially in 2 years. As long as you don't stream music or video or use it as a tether for your home service I don't see any great threat that 2 gigs won't be more than enough in the near future. The old "app and system updates eat up the 2gigs" song is just plain silly. Web sites are not changing that fast as far as intensive data requirements either.

But even if it does go up two things can happen. 1. I can use it less or 2. the providers can catch up with the demand.

[jseah]

I'm not buying the argument that data use will increase expotentially in 2 years. As long as you don't stream music or video or use it as a tether for your home service I don't see any great threat that 2 gigs won't be more than enough in the near future. The old "app and system updates eat up the 2gigs" song is just plain silly. Web sites are not changing that fast as far as intensive data requirements either.

But even if it does go up two things can happen. 1. I can use it less or 2. the providers can catch up with the demand.

In the same studies that come up with "the average user uses about 500 MB of data per month", it also came out with the statistic that this average has doubled over the past year.

While data usage may not necessarily double every year like Moore's Law, it will undoubtedly go up. Remember that those studies/surveys that determined the average data usage did not consider cloud storage, which basically started within the last 8 months or so. With Dropbox, Google Drive, the iCloud, and whatever Amazon calls their cloud storage, they are encouraging users to save their music files, etc. to the cloud and then streaming it to their phone. That streaming will use quite a bit of data versus storing those same files locally, which uses none.

[mkempton]

Well the 2GB is going to bite me in the ***. Got my GS3 at 10:30AM. By 4pm I had used over 500MB of my 2GB monthly allotment. :-)
Granted a large percentage was installing apps, but streaming less than one album from Google Play music cost me 150MB. I just finished getting all that data up there! Back to local music!

[Dennisjara91]

Well the 2GB is going to bite me in the ***. Got my GS3 at 10:30AM. By 4pm I had used over 500MB of my 2GB monthly allotment. :-)
Granted a large percentage was installing apps, but streaming less than one album from Google Play music cost me 150MB. I just finished getting all that data up there! Back to local music!

in my opinion with limited data, when you want to download apps and stream music i suggest you always stick to wifi lol as much as it sucks having to say that, it will save you alot of MB in the future so you won't go over your data limit.

[lmmmmm]

Got my G3 yesterday and then noticed my plan changed to 2gb even though i upgraded prior to 6/28 to stay unlimited.

called CSR and they put it back to unlimited data.

[jseah]

Got my G3 yesterday and then noticed my plan changed to 2gb even though i upgraded prior to 6/28 to stay unlimited.

called CSR and they put it back to unlimited data.

Activated two GSIII's yesterday, and no change to data plans....still unlimited. Checked again today and the data plans still shows unlimited data.

[ben7337]

Got my G3 yesterday and then noticed my plan changed to 2gb even though i upgraded prior to 6/28 to stay unlimited.

called CSR and they put it back to unlimited data.

Given that you're not complaining, I assume it was easy? Good to know they aren't being super evil about letting people keep unlimited.

[lmmmmm]

Given that you're not complaining, I assume it was easy? Good to know they aren't being super evil about letting people keep unlimited.

yep. easy peasy. they seemed to be aware this has been happening.

[sectime]

The problem is when data usage explodes in the future. Do you think you will use the same data usage two years from now that you will use now? For most people, they will use more in the future.

The assumptions in your statement can't be supported by facts, it is after all guessing. There are compression codecs being developed driven by Netflix and other streaming usage. Kicking and screaming users will change behavior from all you can eat to portion control. When my refrigerator and stove start talking to each other people will vote with their wallet and not adopt if it's to expensive. Torrents and other huge data hogs should go, bad for everyone else's use.

[chakalakasp]

Yeah, because that's why we all bought smartphones -- to use them only with wifi!

[sectime]

Yeah, because that's why we all bought smartphones -- to use them only with wifi!

Ohh that's so sad didn't you pay your bill?