| Interesting. This kind of disproves all the mainstream media outlets who claim Sprint's unlimited plans are unsustainable. If only 4% use more than 3GB, same as At&t, then I would Sprint users do not abuse the unlimited. Marketing unlimited brings people in and if they only use 870MB, Sprint can market them a service and suffer no greater impact than the limited plans offered by Verizon and At&t. |
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iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 | The catch here is that, in many places, Sprint's network is not conducive to using a lot of data. When Sprint turns on LTE, I'd expect them to jump to roughly the same level as T-Mobile. |
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1 edit | I'm on a grandfathered Verizon unlimited package. I don't use much data away from WiFi, but the problem is that my phone ( Thunderbolt) has trouble using 3G AND 4G data out in suburban DC. I would use MORE data if I could, but it's a real problem with my phone and I don't want to pay money for another phone to see if that helps ( Another Thunderbolt doesn't have as many problems and the data usage is a LOT higher because it gets used more by another person). I wonder if that many people are having data connectivity problems like me? |
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| Caps scaring users? I have Verizon grandfathered unlimited as well. Aside from the fact that I don't watch a lot of video on my too-small-to-watch-much-video phone screen, I use the 3G/LTE for what it is: backup/mobile Internet. I don't consider it a replacement for my wireline service (I often update my phone on wifi at my house), and don't want to even entertain that mindset, as I don't believe I'll be unlimited indefinitely.
I wonder how many people are "scared off" by their capped plans, or feel, as I do, that one day they will be capped. |
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elray
join:2000-12-16
Santa Monica, CA | said by coreyography:I have Verizon grandfathered unlimited as well. Aside from the fact that I don't watch a lot of video on my too-small-to-watch-much-video phone screen, I use the 3G/LTE for what it is: backup/mobile Internet. I don't consider it a replacement for my wireline service (I often update my phone on wifi at my house), and don't want to even entertain that mindset, as I don't believe I'll be unlimited indefinitely.
I wonder how many people are "scared off" by their capped plans, or feel, as I do, that one day they will be capped.
You're right on the money. Contrary to the dribble we read here daily, caps are not intended to create overage charges, but to train subscribers to keep their consumption in check - far below the "up to" ceiling.
Far away from the DSLR forum crowd, the average consumer simply doesn't use that much, to begin with, but without the introduction of caps, would learn to expect to watch full-length HD movies on their QXGA tablets.
And while the caps chosen are arbitrary, and far far below the theoretical capacity of the airwaves, given the pathetic spectrum allocation methods our government has chosen, they remain perhaps the best tool to educate the masses and keep response times and throughput reasonable. |
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 Lone WolfIndependent Voter, Buy Gold and GunsPremium
join:2001-12-30
USA
kudos:1
 ·Verizon Online DSL
 ·Comcast
| Philly.com Yesterday there was an story about data usage in my local newspaper and Philly.com. quote:
As you might imagine, there's a vast difference in how much data different smartphone users actually go through. And while iPhone users were once way ahead of the pack, that's no longer true, according to Validas.com, a Texas company that helps clients manage wireless accounts.
Validas says that in 2012, iPhone owners have so far used an average of 568 megabytes per month - little enough to avoid throttling, if they were on an unlimited-data plan, or overage charges. But the story was different for the highest-end users. The top 5 percent of iPhone users averaged nearly three gigabytes per month, and the top 1 percent of users topped five gigabytes per month.
And owners of some Android smartphones left them in the dust. Topping the list were owners of an HTC Thunderbolt sold for use on Verizon's new LTE network. The top 5 percent of Thunderbolt users averaged more than nine gigabytes per month, and the top 1 percent used more than 27 gigs. Owners of the Motorola Droid Razr weren't far behind.
Read more: »www.philly.com/philly/business/2···7o1JHNKt
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»www.teamovercome.net/
»www.galaxynexusforum.com/ |
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| reply to elray
Re: Caps scaring users? When it comes to caps on wireless, I agree with you. Battling congestion is the main goal in mind when it comes to wireless caps. As we have seen it has not proven to be as effective as the companies wished it would. This is especially true on satellite. But at this point there is really nothing more effective out there. Throttling and QoS can improve overall performance, but they have little impact on eliminating congestion.
However, when it comes to wired services I think it is more about money than anything else. We are seeing caps on even FTTH services. The caps on these services are high enough that they do essentially nothing to counter peak usage, but are excellent at raking in money for usage used on off-peak times. With the exception of some DSL providers that have copper-fed DSLAMs, congestion on wired services is really not that big of an issue. Especially on some of the major providers we have, such as Comcast.
Now with that said, I honestly have a hard time feeling sorry for people who complain about 300GB+ caps. The overwhelming majority of people will not use that much data at all, and if they do, more often than not a large amount of that traffic is illegally acquired content that was downloaded in violation of your ToS anyway. |
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 IowaCowboyWant to go back to IowaPremium
join:2010-10-16
Springfield, MA
·Comcast
 ·Verizon Broadban..
| Home vs Away The only Wi-Fi network that I use (and trust) is my secure home network. When I am on the go, I use the Verizon Wireless network.
Can't wait to get the iPhone 5, my upgrade eligibility date on Verizon is November 30, 2012. That LTE radio in the iPhone 5 will be nice.
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I wish I still lived in Iowa; Everything there from rent and groceries to Cable TV is much cheaper in Iowa (especially with an overbuilder in town). |
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 JohnInSJPremium
join:2003-09-22
San Jose, CA
 ·PHONE POWER
·Comcast
| wifi blanket Wifi at home, work, gym, grocery store, auto shop, coffee shop.
No wifi when commuting 20 minutes to/from work, or otherwise actually mobile...
My cellular usage is under 1GB - wifi usage is > 4GB. total would be 5-7GB/mo.
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My place : »www.schettino.us |
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 ArkhmAsylmEvrythng I need isn't really what I want
join:2006-02-22
Saint Paul, MN | Android user averages When my wife and I upgraded to Android phones, we bought into the Verizon upgraded 4 GB plan for each of us. On average, I'll use between 2-3 GB per month, and she hit a new high point of 1.75 GB last month.
My usage is racked-up mostly at work or on the road; my wife's is on the bus and at home - both on the VZW network (I've just purchased a router to help with the lousy coverage in our neighborhood). We are in the 45-50y range of users.
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*Tap, Tap, Tap* Is this thing on? |
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Reviews:
·Frontier Communi..
| reply to IowaCowboy
Re: Home vs Away said by IowaCowboy:The only Wi-Fi network that I use (and trust) is my secure home network.
VPNs are a wonderful thing. Snoop my traffic all day long, it's nothing but udp packets on port 4500, at least from the vantage point of the wi-fi network.  |
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 BF69Premium
join:2004-07-28
Camden, TN | Caps to to increase OK if not for Wi-Fi the AVERAGE Android user would use 3.3 GB a month. That's more than the standard 2 GB data package. Also that's right now. Usage has been increasing by 40% a year. In 5 years the AVERAGE user will be using 18 GB. What's the big deal about 4G if you can't use it much? Might as well go back to a basic phone for calling and get a Kindle Fire or such for all the things you have to do on a phone with Wi-Fi. |
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Reviews:
 ·HughesNet Satell..
| reply to silbaco
Re: Caps scaring users? said by silbaco:Now with that said, I honestly have a hard time feeling sorry for people who complain about 300GB+ caps. The overwhelming majority of people will not use that much data at all, and if they do, more often than not a large amount of that traffic is illegally acquired content that was downloaded in violation of your ToS anyway.
I can somewhat see where you're coming from, but I am pretty data hungry  .
I think it can (even at 300GB+) become a bigger issue with more people in a household. (even more so as data needs increase).
Takes a healthy bit of effort to use up 300GB as a single person even with steam, Netflix, and whatnot, even at fairly high speeds. Divide that by a household of 4 and that leaves you with 75GB per person, or roughly 2.5GB a day which is far from impossible to do in the age of streaming media, large games, and more.
The answer I hear a lot is people should go to a business plan etc, which I think is a silly to have to go to unless you're actually running a business. |
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| reply to elray
Problem is these services are being marketed as a replacement for wireline services to some, particularly those in rural areas. They also have crazy low caps even though they're the alternative to DSL marketed to the masses in the "sticks". |
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BinkVillains... knock off all that evil
join:2006-05-14
Denver, CO
kudos:4 | 250MB a Month I run Jelly Bean and use about 250MB a month—and that probably because, more often than not, I can access Wi-Fi when working from home or at a client’s site. |
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 aaronwtPremium
join:2004-11-07
Woodbridge, VA
 ·Verizon FiOS
4 edits | only 870MB... My monthly billing period ended on September 26th with my LTE Verizon phone(ReZound) with unlimited data. I hit 18GB of data usage this past monthly billing period.
I rarely use WiFI when out of the house since I typically have a 4G connection at least 95% of the time in the DC area, which is many times faster than WiFi networks.
At home my phone does connect to my 5Ghz WiFi to use my FiOS 150/65 connection, but I don't typically use my cell phone at home. It just sits there on the charger base. So data usage over wifi is minimal for my phone.
Since uploading all my Music to the Amazon cloud, I've finally been able to have a device with access to all my music. Since none of the cell phones or music players had enough storage to store all of my music. So that is why my data usage is so high. And when I spend a bunch of days in a month listening to the music all day at work, in addition to the normal listening while in the car, the data usage really climbs way over 10GB |
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 trparkyApple... YUMPremium,MVM
join:2000-05-24
Cleveland, OH
kudos:2
·Time Warner Cable
| reply to Crookshanks
Re: Home vs Away Same thing here, except that I have setup my own VPN connection on my home router (I have Tomato on my Linksys router). All I have to do is connect back to my home via PPTP and I have a secure connection no matter where I am, doesn't matter the WiFi connection.
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Tom
Boycott AT&T uVerse! | Tom's Android Blog | AOKP (The Android Open Kang Project) |
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| reply to coreyography
Re: Caps scaring users? said by coreyography:I wonder how many people are "scared off" by their capped plans, or feel, as I do, that one day they will be capped.
I know my co-worker is. He's on AT&T with a 2GB cap. |
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 SeleniaI love DebianPremium
join:2006-09-22
Lanesboro, MA
kudos:2 | reply to IowaCowboy
Re: Home vs Away I use a vpn on public wifi and local DNS server on my Android. Can the iPhone still not do vpn? |
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 antdudeA Ninja AntPremium,VIP
join:2001-03-25
United State
kudos:4 | If I had a moible phone with a data plan... ... I would use way more! :P |
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