
Verizon’s good unlimited data plan is now three bad unlimited plans - prostoalex
https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/22/16181362/verizon-new-unlimited-data-plan-video-throttling-net-neutrality
======
atonse
Carriers must be having such a wonderful time with this new FCC.

Uhhh unlimited but it'll never be fast! Uhhh we can re-encode your video,
unless it's streamed from Verizon (you know this part's coming...), deal with
it!

Can't wait for VPN technology to become more widespread, so we can keep these
crooks from altering our traffic.

~~~
shedlight
What do you mean by "new FCC" and what do they have to do with it?

Also, was the old unlimited truly unlimited in all ways? If so, how can every
single customer of any company actually get unlimited data, all the time
without unlimited hardware appearing from nowhere and radio wave spectrum that
expands to unlimited use for unlimited people?

~~~
pjschlic
I think the 'new FCC' comment is a reference to the current FCC Commissioner
being a former general council at Verizon (though it was awhile ago).
Additionally, he's been strongly opposed regulation of the telecoms and
opposed net neutrality for awhile. It's not all him, but the FCC has sharply
changed course on net neutrality since December.

~~~
praneshp
> I think the 'new FCC' comment is a reference to the current FCC Commissioner
> being a former general council at Verizon

This is a somewhat silly argument. I remember the same concern over Wheeler;
everyone was tripping over themselves to praise him when he turned out to be
pro-net neutrality.

~~~
atonse
While many of us were delighted to be wrong about Wheeler, Ajit Pai has ended
up being exactly the kind of spineless corporate shill that you'd expect him
to be.

Wheeler was the exception.

Pai will be handsomely rewarded for all the billions he's generated for the
telcos.

~~~
praneshp
Oh, I'm not questioning if Pai is/will continue to be a shill. Let's call him
that for being a spineless shill, not because he worked at Verizon once. Sorry
if I'm nitpicking, but it's an important distinction to me.

------
kingbirdy
So no carrier anywhere offers true unlimited? It all comes with some form of
slowdowns, either right off the bat or at certain usage thresholds, and
throttles video to some arbitrary max resolution?

~~~
bitJericho
That's what a monopoly brings. It won't take very long for other countries to
eclipse the US in tech.

~~~
rayiner
What monopoly? There are four major nationwide carriers. That's more
competition than in: search, mobile operating systems, package delivery, and
many other markets we think of as competitive.

~~~
kingbirdy
I don't think anyone on HN thinks those are competitive markets, they're all
oligopolies

~~~
tptacek
Whatever else they are, they're also the expected outcome for capital-
intensive markets with difficult-to-differentiate products. It would be weird
if we had 10 competing nationwide carriers.

(Not "bad". Weird.)

------
gr3yh47
Didnt verizon already lose a court case saying they couldnt do throttling and
still call it unlimited?

------
devy
The "unlimited" in Verizon's unlimited plans refer to the number of exceptions
in their "unlimited" plans.

------
MBCook
Lovely. I just signed up for the unlimited plan on Verizon about a week or two
ago.

Now I have NO IDEA what my situation is or which tier I'm effectively in.

~~~
DanHulton
You stay in the same plan, none of the new tiers. They don't morph into new
plans magically.

However, you're still restricted to the 720p video cap.

So it's still pretty shitty.

~~~
MBCook
Given that I'm pretty sure I've been experiencing their "test" that's an
improvement.

I was more worried I was going to be stuck in the 480p tier.

------
isnotchicago
By default, AT&T also throttles video playback to 480p, but it is an option
that can be disabled:
[https://www.att.com/offers/streamsaver.html](https://www.att.com/offers/streamsaver.html)
(instructions listed in the middle/FAQ).

------
kchoudhu
Routing traffic through a VPN should circumvent this malarkey, right?

~~~
wmf
For now and as long as not too many people do it.

~~~
_justinfunk
Also, Netflix blocks "proxies" which generally include VPNs.

~~~
kchoudhu
Learned this the hard way when we moved abroad for a few months and wanted to
get our American Netflix on.

No biggie, now we VPN into my home and use that connection to check out US
Netflix: their blocking is entirely IP-based.

~~~
chrishacken
Exactly what I said in my comment and yet it was downvoted.

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adamgamble
How can they detect the video if it's over ssl? Are they just detecting big
streams of data and throttling it? If so that's bad because it will certainly
have false positives and throttle those.

~~~
wmf
AFAIK they're detecting IP addresses of major video services.

------
bluedino
>> Unlimited mobile hotspot, but hotspot speeds are capped at a maximum of
600kbps

I see this as a bright spot - unlimited hotspot is great, 6mb isn't 'fast' but
it's enough to be usable. And the other plan has the first 15GB on LTE speed.

~~~
strictnein
Well, that's not 6Mb. It's 600Kbps == 0.6Mbps

~~~
derekp7
So that's fast enough for ssh. I wonder if it is good enough for RDP, VNC, or
NX protocol. I don't think it would be good for raw uncompressed X11. Also, is
that available as a standalone hotspot plan, or just with a phone hotspot?

~~~
fencepost
RDP is absolutely fine at 600kbps, in fact it's just fine at 128kbps and still
pretty decent at 56kbps.

Bear in mind that it's not magic, so even with the improvements in newer
versions that make video and audio suck less it's not going to let you stream
any better than your base connection speed would allow anyway.

------
ikeboy
Anyone know if MVNOs like Ting get the same throttling?

~~~
4ad
Ting is not on Verizon. Verizon doesn't have many MVNOs, last I checked all
Verizon MVNOs came with lots of caveats that made them unsable for me at the
time. FWIW, I chose Ting, no traffic shaping whatsoever and no artificial
limits of any kind. Of course, T-Mobile and Sprint might do their own traffic
shaping, but as a previous T-Mobile customer, this doesn't seem to be the
case. It works better for me now on Ting than it used to work before on
T-Mobile. No throttling, no video degradation, no bullshit. Definitely
recommended.

Unfortunately worse coverage then Verizon though, at least where I need it.

~~~
ikeboy
The article claims that all major carriers do something similar, so I'm
wondering whether MVNOs are exempt.

~~~
4ad
Possibly depends on the MVNO and the type of contract they got with the MNO.
On Ting you are definitely exempt, other MVNOs, not so sure. However, my
understanding is that MVNO traffic has lower priority in the MNO traffic
shaping, so you get affected if there's congestion.

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dplgk
Are they transcoding video down to 480p?

