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Heiwashin
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New verizon unlimited plan

Sun Feb 12, 2017 6:52 pm

So they haven't made the details visible directly to me yet, but the word is that starting tomorow you can get unlimited for 80$ a month for a single line. The soft cap is at 22gb where you're subject to throttling if traffic is too busy. The downside is that it only allows for 10gb of tethering. I've been really happy with the popdata offering and probably use 1-200 gb a month. I guess i'm hoping that there's a solution suitable for my needs in this new unlimited setup or that i can just keep my old popdata style plan or something...
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ludi
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Re: New verizon unlimited plan

Sun Feb 12, 2017 7:19 pm

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Welch
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Re: New verizon unlimited plan

Sun Feb 12, 2017 7:32 pm

Good because AT&T should be shot for making users get a **** DirectTV plan to get unlimited.  I want to see AT&T have to offer an unlimited plan with say 40-50gb before throttling.  Don't limit my damn ability to tether either.  If I run out of my 40-50gb, throttle away to something reasonable.  Maybe even do a tiered throttling.  After 30gb you drop to 4G speeds, after 60 you drop to 3G speeds and if you manage to make it over 100gb or something crazy like 200 (which I've seen people on AT&T doing), drop them down to something like 128kbps.

Treating data like it is some ultra rare commodity needs to die in a fire.  As someone who has setup customers to function as a WISP, the profit margins would make you cry and that is reselling of local ISPs connections, not even 3rd, 2nd or 1st tier providers.

Glad to see Verizon adding SOMETHING, hopefully it will stir up competition.
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Heiwashin
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Re: New verizon unlimited plan

Sun Feb 12, 2017 7:43 pm

i have to give t-mobile credit. All of their "un-carrier" business has been driving competition to answer the t-mobile war drums for a while.
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Airmantharp
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Re: New verizon unlimited plan

Mon Feb 13, 2017 2:10 am

So this is cool- relatively unlimited and reasonably priced?

If AT&T doesn't answer in the next few months (my phone is paid for in May), I'd be willing to switch, even just for the better signal.
 
ludi
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Re: New verizon unlimited plan

Mon Feb 13, 2017 2:50 pm

Verizon has the actual prices posted now, it's a sliding scale priced per-line. $80/1, $70/2, $54/3, $45/4.  Not bad if you need massive amounts of mobile data, but our current 8GB plan is effectively $50/2 with prior-month data rollover, and we don't need more for the foreseeable future.

I am amused to see the CanYouHearMeNow guy shilling for Sprint, though.  Viva la competition.
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Duct Tape Dude
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Re: New verizon unlimited plan

Mon Feb 13, 2017 3:04 pm

For families, it's $110/month ($100 with autopay) plus $20/line for 22GB. It's "unlimited" as in "same thing as before with slightly enhanced safety mode after 22GB."

I'm on that odd 12GB plan with bonus data and carryover and I don't see much reason to pay more at the moment. Oh well.
 
derFunkenstein
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Re: New verizon unlimited plan

Mon Feb 13, 2017 3:13 pm

Verizon has also taken down all of the plans larger than 8GB. There's 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB, and then "unlimited".

$80 (with auto-pay) for individuals, and that includes the line access fee.
$100 (with auto-pay) for multiple lines + $20 per line for the access fee.
NO employee discount program for this, which is actually a problem for me.
Only 10GB of LTE hot-spot use, but that seems kind of reasonable, all things considered. It doesn't cut you off after that, just drops you down to CDMA 3G.

It appears they expect to only throttle users above 22GB for the month "infrequently", and better yet, each line gets its own 22GB threshold.

Droid Life has a very informative post about the plan.
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Duct Tape Dude
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Re: New verizon unlimited plan

Mon Feb 13, 2017 3:38 pm

derFunkenstein wrote:
Verizon has also taken down all of the plans larger than 8GB. There's 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB, and then "unlimited".

$80 (with auto-pay) for individuals, and that includes the line access fee.
$100 (with auto-pay) for multiple lines + $20 per line for the access fee.
NO employee discount program for this, which is actually a problem for me.
Only 10GB of LTE hot-spot use, but that seems kind of reasonable, all things considered. It doesn't cut you off after that, just drops you down to CDMA 3G.

It appears they expect to only throttle users above 22GB for the month "infrequently", and better yet, each line gets its own 22GB threshold.

Droid Life has a very informative post about the plan.

Thanks for the clarification. It does seem to be worth a few extra dollars if every line gets 22GB unthrottled. However, no employee discounts? Really? They already exempted line access from it, and now I can't use it for the new data plan either? DUMB.
 
ludi
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Re: New verizon unlimited plan

Mon Feb 13, 2017 5:53 pm

derFunkenstein wrote:
Verizon has also taken down all of the plans larger than 8GB. There's 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB, and then "unlimited".

$80 (with auto-pay) for individuals, and that includes the line access fee.
$100 (with auto-pay) for multiple lines + $20 per line for the access fee.
NO employee discount program for this, which is actually a problem for me.
Only 10GB of LTE hot-spot use, but that seems kind of reasonable, all things considered. It doesn't cut you off after that, just drops you down to CDMA 3G.

It appears they expect to only throttle users above 22GB for the month "infrequently", and better yet, each line gets its own 22GB threshold.

Droid Life has a very informative post about the plan.

Just read the article, that explanation of the pricing makes more sense than the one Verizon is publishing.  However, they're also claiming you can get the larger capped plans, but Verizon isn't advertising them anymore -- you have to ask.
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derFunkenstein
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Re: New verizon unlimited plan

Mon Feb 13, 2017 9:48 pm

Oh, I didn't catch that you could ask in person/on the phone for the larger plans. It's just as well; we have 8GB and it's plenty.
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Vhalidictes
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Re: New verizon unlimited plan

Tue Feb 14, 2017 11:55 am

Airmantharp wrote:
So this is cool- relatively unlimited and reasonably priced?

If AT&T doesn't answer in the next few months (my phone is paid for in May), I'd be willing to switch, even just for the better signal.

The service level and the plan look tempting... but... ugh, CDMA. I'd have to get all new phones, and the selection isn't nearly as good.

Every other provider is GSM-based and that's a big advantage. I'll probably go with T-mobile just so I can take my current devices.
 
ludi
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Re: New verizon unlimited plan

Tue Feb 14, 2017 12:06 pm

Vhalidictes wrote:
The service level and the plan look tempting... but... ugh, CDMA. I'd have to get all new phones, and the selection isn't nearly as good.
Every other provider is GSM-based and that's a big advantage. I'll probably go with T-mobile just so I can take my current devices.

If I still hung out mainly in urban areas, I would still be on T-Mobile.

But I switched to Verizon a few years ago because my job periodically takes me to the most rural corners of the Great Plains states, and if Verizon doesn't have service, 9 times out of 10 they're the last signal to go dark.  You get the service, but you pay the highest price for it.  Phone selection isn't an issue, though; a used Nexus 5X (Model #H790, i.e. the original full-band US release) or 6P does everything, and you can then SIM-swap if you travel out of country.
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Buub
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Re: New verizon unlimited plan

Tue Feb 14, 2017 2:12 pm

As the father of a 20-something and a teenager, plus my wife's and my occasional tethering, this looks very attractive. I was hoping this would be the result of the T-Mobile competition.

And agreed that data is vastly over-priced, especially as capacity continually increases.
 
derFunkenstein
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Re: New verizon unlimited plan

Tue Feb 14, 2017 3:03 pm

Slightly related: it was kind of fun to watch John Legere have an internet hissy fit yesterday. Caught totally with his pants down over their stupid limited-unlimited plan. If they'd just done this sort of thing from the start without exempting services one at a time, it'd be fine, but T-Mobile had to simultaneously do as little as possible to look "better" and brag on themselves constantly at the same time. Their coverage has improved by leaps and bounds, but the CEO and his hero-complex personality keep me away.
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David
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Re: New verizon unlimited plan

Tue Feb 14, 2017 4:48 pm

There comes a time for every company who becomes rich and deserts it's users, when they goes back how it was. For Verizon, that time is now.
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Heiwashin
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Re: New verizon unlimited plan

Sun Feb 19, 2017 8:26 pm

Simple out of curiosity i quickly passed the soft cap in the unlimited plan. We'll start with something good. The good thing is, i haven't noticed any special throttling relating to tethering specifically. Kinda cool.

The bad, the really bad. My concern was that the "unlimited" factor would end up turning them into sprint, where i suppose the band is maxed 24 7 so you can look forward to **** speeds. So far it looks like i'm right, in a strange sort of way. When i do a speed test using my phone with ookla, i'm getting fantastic results. 20-30 megabits down. However if i try to load an image, it can take a few minutes at the worst times. I tried testing with different, less popular, speed test programs and ended up with odd results. .02 megabits down, in multiple programs, and in multiple places in the country. My load time in web browsing doesn't lend itself to that horrific speed though, it's definitely a bit faster. However youtube and streams do completely stall at times, unusable for hours last night. Couldn't even load youtubes homepage at times.

In other words, it seems they're throttling specific net traffic worse than others, and seemingly arbitrarily in relation to tower congestion. If the band can handle 20-30 for the ookla test, why not allow me to use some of that for actual transfer? Are they just pumping up the ookla test as a top priority transfer? If that was the case it would explain why the tower could be full but still give me top results for that test.

I need more time to understand what precisely is going on. I only have 2 days before the monthly end but i intend to gather as much information as i can during that time. The direction this is heading though will result in my calling them and getting back on a fat data plan i was on, because it's appearing that "unlimited" is just as unusable past the soft cap as everyone elses is.
Looking for Knowledge wrote:
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I want to have sex, but find I am more likely to be shot down than when I am sober.
 
Heiwashin
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Re: New verizon unlimited plan

Tue Feb 21, 2017 9:54 pm

Today my cycle rolls so it's the end of my two day testing. The throttling of specific traffic seems unpredictable, and so i can't even say with certainty it's an actual thing. Particularly because throttling itself is absolutely rambunctious.

The speed test shows me a very lightly smoothed readout on the connection. So i can see the massive changes in speed occuring during even a short test. It's not uncommon to see 10 megabits down, then 7, then .5, then 20, all in one 15 second test while being throttled. Moving seems to help the process a lot, even when it seems like it shouldn't.

I don't have the time to check for which tower i'm connected to, or whether or not i'm changing towers, when i'm monitoring my speed while moving. The reason that bothers me is because even in what i believe to be an area with smooth data usage density, my speed seems to vary a lot. I think it's reasonable to assume that it's specific towers causing the more consistent extreme slowdowns.

My conclusion is that unlimited will probably be worth it for most people who blow past the limit, depending on the towers they're connected to during their primary usage times. There are times when i'm able to use internet fine for hours at reasonable speeds. Especially late at night or early morning. It may be much more predictable, for better or worse, for people that spend a lot of time on the same towers. The problem is that the main reason i picked verizon in the first place was consistency and reliability. Both of those things have been thrown out the window. There are still times when my internet seemingly disconnects for a while because it's become so slow.

I've been imagining a scenario when i'm in new york city on manhattan island navigating my tractor trailer when i come across a closed road, which has happened before. I'm imagining that i try to quickly pull up satellite images,check my company supplied local directions, and other general things i could previously do in seconds to find an alternate route while actively blocking a lane or intersection. The problem is that now my phones internet may have slowed to such a crawl that it's entirely incapable of being any assistance as an important tool. I don't mind so much that it gets throttled, but it needs to be a little more practical and predictable. Why exactly do i really need to be throttled to under dial up speeds, busy tower or not. Unlimited, "with minimal throttling" my ass.
Looking for Knowledge wrote:
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screenwizard94
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Re: New verizon unlimited plan

Mon Feb 27, 2017 5:02 am

David wrote:
There comes a time for every company who becomes rich and deserts it's users, when they goes back how it was. For Verizon, that time is now.

I totally agree with this.
 
Buub
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Re: New verizon unlimited plan

Mon Feb 27, 2017 12:54 pm

screenwizard94 wrote:
David wrote:
There comes a time for every company who becomes rich and deserts it's users, when they goes back how it was. For Verizon, that time is now.

I totally agree with this.

I would agree with this if AT&T wasn't just as bad. They problem is, they are big enough to buy tons of government market protection. It will be a slow slide down.

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