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Verizon Going With Tiered Data.

AT&T is grandfathering even if you upgrade to a new phone, as long as you dont have a break in your data plan. I would see no need for Verizon to act any different.

You had to know this was comming, it is why I went ahead and paid 200 buck to jump ship on AT&T, so I could get locked into an unlimited Data plan. I am a HEAVY user.
 
this personally doesnt bother me....
i am on wi-fi 90% of the time
any networks internet is slower than my own
to be honest, a data package is really a waste of money for me sadly that i have to pay
 
There are positive notes to this, the network should never get bogged down like AT&T in big cities. I also think that Flash has much do do with this, with Flash comes a LOT of data usage in the form of video.
 
Yes we will be grandfathered in, but for how long? is really the question. If the carriers really think that tiered is the way to go they will not let people grandfather forever. There will come a point where if you want to change phones or the thing I see more likely is that to change to LTE we will loose unlimited.
 
Remember this.... AT&T AND VERIZON are both sister companies, branches from the original Bell Atlantic. So of course they are going to try to match each other. The problem/truth of the matter (and I hate to admit it) is that with all of these high end devices ( namely Android... cuz imo there's nothing better) comes HEAVY data usage. And with all that heavy usage comes a strain on bandwidth. Seems like they are simply running out of it on the current network. 3 options as I see it

1. Increasing bandwidth to allow more data and keep unlimited going, you increase the cost of the service.

2. Limit bandwidth by creating data "packages ", in which the phone companies hope this will steer away heavy data users, thus freeing up that bandwidth.

3. Roll out 4g sooner to more markets which provides a faster pipeline for data thus resulting in less congestion. ( but we all know that's slim to none)

That's just my take on it guys and gals. Please feel free to correct me and add some more FACTUAL info. and yes, you will be grandfathered in until your contract ends. otherwise they would be looking at a class action lawsuit for a breach of contract.
 
I know I'm grandfathered as of now, but what happens if I want to buy a new phone after the tiered plans go into effect? Will I have to switch over to a tiered plan?
 
The challenge with 4G is that is provides more potential bandwidth for it's users... and with Internet based smartphones like Android and the iPhone, it becomes really easy to suck up lots of bandwidth quickly.

While 4G provides more potential bandwidth few consider the other side of the equation, how do people think that bandwidth makes it from the cell tower to the Internet? Cellular providers have to backhaul the data using T1 circuits, T3 circuits, and are starting to migrate to high speed fiber. Well this type of infrastructure is extremely expensive. New fiber buildouts to cell towers can cost upwards of 20k or more depending on the location of the tower in relation to existing fiber in the community.
 
verizon will probably grandfather you until there is a break in your plan. The local rep refuses to touch my mom and dad's plan for a similar reason. They have had the same plan with 3 add a lines for going on 8 years. Sufficient to say, it is dirt cheap. Like $110 for 5 lines unlimited text and such and a buttload of minutes cheap. When my little sister and her husband wanted to strip their two lines away and get their own plan because they were tired of mooching, the rep said that it would end up costing $160 a month for just those two lines on the same type plan. So they just pay mom and dad $50 a month and call it even.

So I have a reasonable amount of faith that verizon will do the right thing.
 
What worries me about these tiered plan is that they need to warn you if you are about to go over or ask via text or email getting your permission to charge you another so many $$ for the next tier.

The reason behind this is because of this month on my bill. I currently have the original moto droid and consider myself a heavy user constantly using 4-7gigs per month while on the other hand my wife is a very light user usually less than 1gig per month.

This last bill cycle i used just under 5gigs and she somehow has over 8.5 gigs. She has a BB Tour and if anyone knows about BB's they know how little data they use. She doesn't tether and rarely browses the web or streams music and only has a single yahoo email set up.

We both don't know where it all came from but this would have been a disaster if we were on a tiered plan. IMHO tiered plans are great for the providers but at the cost of the customers.
 
Tiered plans suck. plain and simple. They will have to offer an option to prevent you from going over your 2 gigs a month or else they will wind back up in court again like they did with the huge bills people were getting for going over on their text message packages several years ago. all the big companies were forced to provide ways to block them from going over.

It will be the same case with this. It's just another way for these companies to bring in big bucks for every ounce of bandwidth you use.

one text message is .20 cents. for 144 characters sent. 144 characters. do you know what the profit margin is on that? It's unbelievable.
 
they better allow people who ordered droid X but are back order to still have unlimited. Similar to Apple/A&TT doing it with the Ipad being backordered.

I'm gonna raise hell if they don't.
 
carmendiva said:
this personally doesnt bother me....
i am on wi-fi 90% of the time
any networks internet is slower than my own
to be honest, a data package is really a waste of money for me sadly that i have to pay
Click to expand...


Carmen had a good point, on Wi-fi you wouldn't be capped at all. i would consider just moving to that if have a signal avail...

except for the things you can't do on Wi-fi that is, but with the lowered data against your 3g you should well under the usage limit and it will save you a coupld of bucks a month if they go with the same price as At&t
 
How about still have the unlimited plan but add a tiered service for people that do not have high data requirements. I never gone over 1gb and I still have to pay $30 bucks. This swings both ways. And with the new verizon services app it's very easy to monitor data. I only use data to check email, notifications and browse the web. Between 7/11 and 7/21 I used 529MB. So a 2gb cap will be just fine for me. Just make it cheaper.
 
exactly it may help lower end users, i vary from month to month so either way wifi is awesome for me.
 
Although I think lower tiers for less money would be just fine, doing away with an unlimited option as ATT did is a mistake. Many who are new to smartphones are afraid of the $30 per month extra. Fine- give them a 1gb or 2gb option. Cutting off the unlimited option is problematic for many reasons and will hurt many of the services that have made smartphones the powerful tools they are. What good is Facebook, Twitter, exchange and google syncing, Pandora, YouTube, Slacker, TV.com, Netflix, online multiplayer games, and especially video chat if one has to watch their data constantly and turn off or not use these services?
 
If I am going to be a new vzw customer before they roll out tiered data, will I be grandfathered. Or, have they already set a date for grandfathering?
 
Wow, so glad I just signed up with Verizon last week. I was with AT&T and I had canceled my data plan, so if I re-upped with them, then I would have been stuck with the tiered plan.
Hopefully, this is just a preventative measure to limit use as they build up 4G enough to be able to sustain heavy use throughout the country. I already emailed my family telling them they need to hurry up and switch in order to be grandfathered in.
Funny thing is I mentioned the tiered thing to the Verizon sales rep in the store. I asked him if Verizon was planning on going tiered any time soon. He said that there hasn't been any talk and not too worry. He said nothing would happen this year anyway. I mean I knew there had been talk, but he was pretty confident about it so I felt inclined to believe him. Oh well, so much for that....
 
I was nearing 5GB on my blackberry last month, and that's just mostly streaming XM. Now that I got an X I imagine that'll go up with GPS and all of the other android goodies.
 
yeah so i just read on android central that verizon is saying that all of us X users, IN ONE WEEK, are using 5 times more data than any other phone on their network!!!
I've def noticed my data has JUMPED WAY UP since getting the X...just wait til the Droid2 comes out (with froyo love) and then we get the froyo update!!! one word-FLASH! if i'm not grandfathered i will definitely find a way to hit them legally for breaking my contract (which i'm sure we will be grandfathered, just depends on how long)
i mean i pay for unlimited for a reason...
you gotta love how they drop this more officially after they release this beast of a phone...if you have the X and are not on unlimited you better switch before the 29th and tell all your friends...
when they do go to tiered plans, i really hope they follow the data plans for verizon netbooks, b/c there is a 5gb per month plan, and for all but the HEAVIEST users that would be fine...you would have to download music and movies all day for a week to go over that (exaggeration!)
ok enough of my rant, had seen that article last night and been mulling it in my head til now...i will prob give verizon a call soon to check on things...
 
I find this particularly hilarious because when I was threatening to cancel last week every rep that I talked to just kept saying they were the only carrier with unlimited data (even though sprint still has unlimited no?)
 
Martimus said:
The challenge with 4G is that is provides more potential bandwidth for it's users... and with Internet based smartphones like Android and the iPhone, it becomes really easy to suck up lots of bandwidth quickly.

While 4G provides more potential bandwidth few consider the other side of the equation, how do people think that bandwidth makes it from the cell tower to the Internet? Cellular providers have to backhaul the data using T1 circuits, T3 circuits, and are starting to migrate to high speed fiber. Well this type of infrastructure is extremely expensive. New fiber buildouts to cell towers can cost upwards of 20k or more depending on the location of the tower in relation to existing fiber in the community.
Click to expand...

I was working at a company that provided location services for GSM/GPRS phones back in '06 and we couldn't get much more than a single DS0 channel into each cell tower.... And we had to have location gear in each cell tower.. Took all of the DS0s into DACS and muxed them out onto DS1s to be consumed by the central systems... Ahh the good old days :)
 
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