
Verizon iPhone Shows You Can’t Win: Carriers Hold the Cards - jenningsjason
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/02/iphone-verizon-sucks/
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cpr
Sorry, guys, but there really ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

Eventually we'll all be paying metered fees, broadband or wireless. It's
really the only fair way, the same as we pay for water or electricity. Data is
just another pipe/wire.

~~~
Bud
Apples and oranges. No, data is not just another wire.

Using up 10x more electricity or water has very real, physical costs which are
proportional to the amount consumed.

Using 10x more data has only very tiny additional costs to the bandwidth
provider. A few seconds of research can easily confirm this. Asserting that
the levels of bandwidth charges we're seeing right now are "fair" is
hilariously wrong.

~~~
pohl
_Using 10x more data has only very tiny additional costs to the bandwidth
provider._

Just out of curiosity, what sort of calculations went into your result of
"tiny additional costs"?

The reason that I ask is that bandwidth is finite and shared by all of the
provider's customers. If one person consumes a lot of bandwidth, it will be to
the detriment of the provider's other customers if the sum of all requested
bandwidth is greater than the finite available bandwidth. Customers will
eventually notice this, and the provider will lose those customers.

How did you account for this in your estimate?

~~~
Bud
I'm talking about data caps kicking in at 200 MB per month, a cleverly chosen
amount of data which just coincidentally happens to be hard to stay under with
any serious usage of a smartphone, and then a big dollar jump to the next cap
of (typically) a few GB a month, which most users who aren't
uploading/downloading a lot of video can easily stay under.

You'd also be right if the typical overage fees were within an order of
magnitude of what it actually costs the provider to ship those extra bits over
the wire. Or even two orders of magnitude. But from the figures I read (costs
to the provider of circa a penny per megabyte or well under that), we're
getting jobbed.

Don't you find it a bit silly to constantly advertise "4G" networks and their
supposedly blazing speeds, and in the same breath set up data plans which will
only allow you to use your phone at full speed for circa 1 minute per month?
Do the math yourself.

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awolf
I'm thinking of sticking around on AT&T long enough with my iPhone for a
little while. Who knows, the mass iPhone user migration to Verizon might make
AT&T's service halfway decent!

~~~
Bud
I'm pretty convinced this is the case, actually. AT&T's _data_ service has
always been faster than Verizon's, even with the staggering traffic increase
from iPhone. Move a few customers to another network, and AT&T will probably
get even faster.

Color me extremely unimpressed that Verizon is already throttling "heavy" data
users and imposing bandwidth limits before serving Customer #1 from the iPhone
onslaught they are about to experience.

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richcollins
There are so many articles like this that miss the root cause: a lack of
competition. Why is there a lack of competition? Government granted monopolies
and regulation.

We shouldn't have to trust companies to do what's in the best interest
customers. We should be able to trust the market to bankrupt these companies.

~~~
wmf
AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile doesn't count as competition? (Granted,
the iPhone is only officially available on two of them.)

~~~
richcollins
4 choices isn't enough to result in better options for consumers when it's
nearly impossible for new entrants.

Compare this with internet search where there is a clear leader (Google) but
its possible to create your own search engine (DuckDuckGo) without fear of
being arrested for violating some regulation designed by the incumbents and
enforced by the government.

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kbd
This article seems overly biased.

> But above all, Verizon’s data throttling is shady in areas where even AT&T
> can’t compete. Even when AT&T had unlimited data, the company did not
> practice throttling, and an independent test showed its unlimited data was
> truly unlimited.

So AT&T couldn't keep offering unlimited data and went to a 2GB/mo plan. Is
the author really faulting Verizon for not keeping up with a plan that AT&T
doesn't offer anymore?

~~~
Bud
AT&T actually could and _did_ keep offering unlimited data, if you had it
originally. I know, cause I kept the unlimited service for quite a while.

Also, recently, they have re-instituted the unlimited option, if you ever had
it before.

And you are blatantly ignoring the throttling, which is the really offensive
part of what Verizon is doing. Why are you doing that?

~~~
kbd
I was actually going to add a second paragraph about the throttling but
figured my point was uninteresting so I deleted it.

I think the throttling is expected. Consumer wireless data plans are intended
to handle stuff one is likely to do on a phone. If you start pumping gigs of
torrents or something over the network, I'd expect the carrier to throttle
you.

My problem with the way Verizon handled this is their lack of transparency.
They've said their top 5% data users will be throttled. They should really
publish an expected amount of data transfer that would put a user in that
segment, and indicate how they'll throttle you. I also don't like that they
said loudly "our plans are unlimited!" and then in a footnote that had to be
pointed out by someone else, "oh yeah but we'll throttle you if you use 'too
much'".

~~~
kbd
One more thing in the interest of full disclosure. I actually forgot that AT&T
grandfathered in their unlimited plans. They're still available now if you
never went off that plan?

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cma
Is there a way to use this to void my current verizon contract and get a new
phone early? (I have a legacy unlimited plan that I wouldn't mind losing)

~~~
Bud
Yes, many carriers will allow you to re-up your contract if you are a good
customer and ask nicely. I've done this about 3 times in the past, twice with
AT&T for new iPhones, a full year early in each case, and once with Sprint.

