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MyVerizon app now works!

This confirms that they PURPOSELY broke the My Verizon app on the Thunderbolt to monitor our usage and not let us see in real time how much we were using so that we didn't throttle ourselves. They then took this info and created the tiers that are now out there.
 
willdogs said:
This confirms that they PURPOSELY broke the My Verizon app on the Thunderbolt to monitor our usage and not let us see in real time how much we were using so that we didn't throttle ourselves. They then took this info and created the tiers that are now out there.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't say it confirms anything. This sounds kind of "tinfoil hat"ish to me man.

They didn't base the tiered pricing solely on the use of the Thunderbolt. They've been researching this much longer than it's even been out. Plus, they would have to block the 3rd party apps (3g watchdog) that do the same exact thing. Plus, can't you get a data consumption total on your monthly bill?
 
I think the tiered data plan timing has more to do with iphone releases. They do the tiered plans, let the furor die down, then boom, iphone 5 (and as a sidenote, bionic).

If the iphone 5 gets 4g (I know the rumors are that it will not), they will want the tiers in place. Reality = iphone dominates the market. And iphone on LTE will be an pretty popular device.
 
TheSultan said:
I wouldn't say it confirms anything. This sounds kind of "tinfoil hat"ish to me man.

They didn't base the tiered pricing solely on the use of the Thunderbolt. They've been researching this much longer than it's even been out. Plus, they would have to block the 3rd party apps (3g watchdog) that do the same exact thing. Plus, can't you get a data consumption total on your monthly bill?
Click to expand...

So how can you explain the following?

- My Verizon App is "not supported" on the TB since day one.
- the developers on the XDA forums were able to easily modify the My Verizon App to work on the TB and distribute to whomever wanted it
- Verzion then send XDA a cease and desist to stop distributing the working app
- As soon as tiered pricing is released, the TB gets an update and my verizon works again.

The App Wasn't broken, it was purposely crippled as evidenced by the XDA developers working again easily.

Why else would it be crippled?
 
willdogs said:
So how can you explain the following?

- My Verizon App is "not supported" on the TB since day one.
- the developers on the XDA forums were able to easily modify the My Verizon App to work on the TB and distribute to whomever wanted it
- Verzion then send XDA a cease and desist to stop distributing the working app
- As soon as tiered pricing is released, the TB gets an update and my verizon works again.

The App Wasn't broken, it was purposely crippled as evidenced by the XDA developers working again easily.

Why else would it be crippled?
Click to expand...

If someone modified my app and then distributed it I'd send a cease and desist letter too.

Data usage can easily be monitored online and if what you say were true they would have disabled that too.

Verizon is very slow to move on almost everything and they are incredibly inefficient. Do you think it's coincidence that they've managed to screw up nearly every single major phone launch? The only thing they are good at is building a network and now I'm not even sure of that after seeing how they handled the Alltel integration.

Seriously, people monitoring their usage so they could throttle themselves on the unlimited plan was the least of their concerns.
 
I'm not sure which side I believe. I missed having the MyVerizon app even though I have unlimited. I just used my phones internet to go on verison's site to check my current usage. It was a little slower but still doable.

I noticed last night that Vcast video was added to my gallery. I clicked on it and it doesn't work. So I tend to agree with the VZW is slow amd inefficient argument.
 
willdogs said:
This confirms that they PURPOSELY broke the My Verizon app on the Thunderbolt to monitor our usage and not let us see in real time how much we were using so that we didn't throttle ourselves. They then took this info and created the tiers that are now out there.
Click to expand...

Data usage has always been available on the desktop website (my verizon) and you really think people with unlimited plans conspire to throttle data to get lower future tier rates lol. even more funny is you think verizon epecting this behavior broke the app on ONE phone to price tiers even though they were selling nearly 20 different smartphones with unlimited data before july 6 not to mention the millions of discontinued ones still under contract. All verizon did was see what AT&T was charging and decided to charge as much more as they thought they could get away with.
 
Yes I know that anyone can go on-line and view their data usage.

But you have to understand that the TB was the first phone with 4G which was completely new and Verizon wanted to see how much more 4G users would use data vs. 3G users. This "collected data" would help them customize their data packages by not making the data packages neither to large or too small. They want to make money on tiered pricing but they also wanted to be careful to not make the tiers too restricted and cause customer blowback (especially from 4G users whom will use larger chinks of data faster than 3G users).

By disabling the Data widget from the TB, users would not have instant feedback and therefore unintentionally throttle their own data usage by having their usage readily available. Yes, we all have unlimited data - so why would anyone "throttle" themselves? Because we are human and perhaps (either because of ignorance or sub-consciously) use less data. You have to remember that we all here on these forums would probably not care how much data we are using but 90% of TB owners are not phone fans and are not on these forums. Therefore would most likely think they "are using too much" and limit themselves.

To be clear, they have tons of data on how much data 3G users use on a monthly basis, but they never had any hard evidence on how much 4G data customers use on a monthly basis so they needed to collect that data. Who else better to collect that data from than brand new TB Owners?

And to clarify the Online Data use vs. the App Widget - Of course anyone can go online and check data usage, but having it instantly available on your phone would likely skew the true results they were looking for. Also, users are less likely to power on their PC, log into the site, and pull up their data usage. But when it is right on their phone a click away, they are more likely to do it more often.

As a software tester myself and in the IT Field for over 18 years, I guess I can see that this was done intentionally more than someone that is not in the field.

I'm not here to go back and forth since this fact really has no bearing on my life in one way or another. This is my opinion and i'm sticking to it, but of course you are free to disagree!

Cheers
 
Hold on everyone... did anyone check their data usage before yesterday? I had over 750 MB of data usage the other day - probably even 1GB. Now, I only have 35 MB... You read that correctly, thirty-five.

I'm 21 days into the 30 day cycle so I'm not confusing this for a new cycle. Have they been overstating our data usage since March? Much like Speedtest.net was overstating our actual upload speeds???

I always had a suspicion that the data usage was overstated because when I had my Eris, I never went over 300 MB in a month. With the TB, I was more than double my typical usage.
 
willdogs said:
Yes I know that anyone can go on-line and view their data usage.

But you have to understand that the TB was the first phone with 4G which was completely new and Verizon wanted to see how much more 4G users would use data vs. 3G users. This "collected data" would help them customize their data packages by not making the data packages neither to large or too small. They want to make money on tiered pricing but they also wanted to be careful to not make the tiers too restricted and cause customer blowback (especially from 4G users whom will use larger chinks of data faster than 3G users).

By disabling the Data widget from the TB, users would not have instant feedback and therefore unintentionally throttle their own data usage by having their usage readily available. Yes, we all have unlimited data - so why would anyone "throttle" themselves? Because we are human and perhaps (either because of ignorance or sub-consciously) use less data. You have to remember that we all here on these forums would probably not care how much data we are using but 90% of TB owners are not phone fans and are not on these forums. Therefore would most likely think they "are using too much" and limit themselves.

To be clear, they have tons of data on how much data 3G users use on a monthly basis, but they never had any hard evidence on how much 4G data customers use on a monthly basis so they needed to collect that data. Who else better to collect that data from than brand new TB Owners?

And to clarify the Online Data use vs. the App Widget - Of course anyone can go online and check data usage, but having it instantly available on your phone would likely skew the true results they were looking for. Also, users are less likely to power on their PC, log into the site, and pull up their data usage. But when it is right on their phone a click away, they are more likely to do it more often.

As a software tester myself and in the IT Field for over 18 years, I guess I can see that this was done intentionally more than someone that is not in the field.

I'm not here to go back and forth since this fact really has no bearing on my life in one way or another. This is my opinion and i'm sticking to it, but of course you are free to disagree!

Cheers
Click to expand...

Just a single datapoint, but I checked my data usage for the first time last night when I read the new widget. Not because it was hard, but because I just don't think about it at all. But I guess this is the first non-work phone I have had for almost 10 years, and I have always had unlimited everything, so I am conditioned to not worry about it, lol.
 
willdogs said:
By disabling the Data widget from the TB, users would not have instant feedback and therefore unintentionally throttle their own data usage by having their usage readily available. Yes, we all have unlimited data - so why would anyone "throttle" themselves? Because we are human and perhaps (either because of ignorance or sub-consciously) use less data. You have to remember that we all here on these forums would probably not care how much data we are using but 90% of TB owners are not phone fans and are not on these forums. Therefore would most likely think they "are using too much" and limit themselves.
Click to expand...

Again, if they didn't want people to track their usage they would have disabled the online usage meter too. I worked in the industry too, and have worked for VZW in various positions including store support, b2b, inventory, and network and can say with certainty that the delay was simply due to Verizons own bureaucracy. I can't tell you how many times I've seen them dedicate a huge amount of resources to a relatively minor problem while ignoring the elephant in the room.
 
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