
Hundreds of Verizon customers are battling data over-limit fees - 0x7fffffff
http://www.syracuse.com/business-news/index.ssf/2016/09/hundreds_of_verizon_customers_are_battling_data_over-limit_fees.html
======
r0m4n0
I find it absurd I have to count gb on a monthly basis to not get charged data
overages in this decade. I literally use my phone lightly and one wrong
mistake can throw my entire family plan into a tail spin. I manage 7 lines and
it's a full time job. Every change on my plan seems to throw Verizon into a
major rework of my bill and subsequent phone calls to have the changes
reverted. I'm all too familiar with creating customer service tickets,
miscalculating promotional data, complaining and receiving credits. I feel
like I might know Verizon's plans more than Verizon. It's enough to make me
not want cellular data.

Comcast has a mesh network in California I literally have free wifi (as a
paying Comcast customer) anywhere I go. Definitely not a plug for Comcast as
they are effectively broadcasting paying customers internet to freeloaders
like myself. Morality of that is another debate though

~~~
c22
Doesn't xfinitywifi use a separate channel to avoid impacting the subscriber's
service? Or are you talking about something else? (xfinitywifi isn't really a
mesh network).

~~~
givinguflac
Xfinitywifi broadcasts on the same channel as the customers network, along
with a 3rd hidden SSID they won't explain. (Current theory is its for their
security systems, who knows.) It absolutely impacts their shitty routers
performance, and causes wireless congestion. I work support for some consumer
wireless equipment and there are lots of times where the only improvement is
disabling xfinitywifi. I don't understand why anyone supports this- it may be
ok for a middle of nowhere town, but in any reasonably populated building it
literally doubles the number of wifi networks, which is a nightmare when you
have a big apartment building and 2.4G interference.

~~~
swiley
I knew there was no way the equipment they wanted us to buy/rent was any good.
I'm glad I went and some cheap modem + a Linksys router.

------
ikeboy
An entire article with numerous anecdotes, and they couldn't mention the one
simple way to check data usage on the phone? Both Android and iOS let you see
exactly which apps used data, although only Android lets you break it down by
period; iOS you'll need to "reset" then use it for a while.

Those anecdotes are pretty much worthless without that information.

I'm surprised the Verizon statement didn't mention to check that.

~~~
foobarqux
> iOS you'll need to "reset" then use it for a while.

Which is idiotic, but still not as idiotic as iOS's lack of automatic data
usage alerts.

~~~
copperx
Not idiotic, just completely against Apple's interests.

~~~
lostlogin
This comes up often. Why is it against Apple interests?

~~~
dalore
More menus, buttons, options, configuration etc. Apple in minimalism. Don't
make me think etc. Ideal world wouldn't have data limits, so they don't put in
data limits as they design for the ideal world.

~~~
lostlogin
This is an argument I can understand. It usually turns into some sort of weird
conspiracy theory about telecos being in cahoots with Apple.

------
dredmorbius
Verizon hit my personal "never do business with them again" shit list a few
years ago, for this and related bullshit.

Non-malevolant data providers are difficult to find.

The abysmally poor monitoring, control, and cost-management options offered
subscribers all feed into this directly, and dovetail nicely with a previous
conversation on the morality of technology. A technology which is financed by
a major vendor, and is designed to maximise that vendor's profits (or worse:
an entire opposed-to-the-subscriber economic sector) will be inherently biased
against subscribers.

Highly obvious data usage tracking, stop-loss financial settings, a soft
degredation, the ability to specify what specific traffic, types of traffic,
and/or sites are available or supported, etc., would all help this out.

As an example on the last point: I've looked at 4GL WiFi hotspot devices.
_None_ of these that I've found supports configuring a firewall or blocklist
on the device itself. For some strange reason, the telecoms and advertising-
oriented providers of such devices don't find it in their interest to offer
such capabilities.

I am increasingly utterly disgusted with the tech world. Some fun toys, yes.
But so gratuitously user-hostile.

You'd think this was part of a Wells-Fargo sales enhancement strategy.

~~~
kristopolous
as far as ethics and 'don't screw the consumer' go, I think t-mobile is the
best you can do. And for me, offering something with integrity is what's
important.

~~~
dredmorbius
There's Credo Mobile, who turned up among signators of tech-related companies
_against_ the TPP.

[http://www.credomobile.com/](http://www.credomobile.com/)

They're part of the CREDO family of philathropically-oriented businesses.

[http://www.credomobile.com/mission/home](http://www.credomobile.com/mission/home)

~~~
kristopolous
it's an interesting idea. but it still has data caps, overage charges, locks
you in a 2 year contract and sits on top of verizons' cdma. the company is
also apparently a traditionally structured hierarchical autocratic
corporation.

with regard to that, all the carriers have a benevolence wing
([https://twitter.com/verizongiving](https://twitter.com/verizongiving) for
instance). So I guess cynically one can say this is just traditional
capitalism with a different foot forward for a different demographic ...
There's a very real ngo-industrial complex and they seem to highlight that
that's where the money goes.

The SPLC for instance, has many members who make $100s of k a year in legal
fees on behalf of the SPLC on top of their $300k salaries. They were also
sitting on over $200 million of unused cash and made it an endowment that they
invested in the market with ... these people involved in these charities have
taken the donations of their members to propel themselves into the 1%.
Splendid.

------
ceejayoz
This is a horrible article.

> "My son, like most young adults, is pretty phone savvy so I was sure he knew
> what to do."

That sort of statement is never a good sign.

> "Shinn insists her late husband's phone isn't used for anything other than
> looking at phone numbers of missed calls or dealing with incoming calls.
> How, she asks, is her late husband's phone using data?"

It's checking an email account or something?

> "When he reaches his data limit each month, he immediately shuts off his
> data. Yet every month for the last four months, his data exceeded his limit.
> The totals: 6.00900; GB 6.00200; GB 6.01100 GB; and 6.00400 GB."

The "you're over limit" is probably not sent at the exact femtosecond you go
over it?

> "Verizon insists that many customers' problems hinge on the infamous "Wi-Fi
> Assist" button, Van Dinter said. With iPhones, this is automatically "on"
> under the iOS9 operating system, which was introduced a year ago."

Verizon's probably right. I saw my data usage go up dramatically with that.

> Why are people's phones using data in the middle of the night when the
> phones aren't being used and are turned off or are on do-not-disturb?

Because do-not-disturb prevents alerts, not usage, and phones check email etc.
24/7.

> If the times of the data pings aren't necessarily accurate and are really
> only within a six-hour window, how is it that the phone call time stamps on
> my bill are accurate to the minute? Verizon says data is tallied and
> reported in chunks.

Because phone calls aren't data usage.

~~~
tushar-r
>The "you're over limit" is probably not sent at the exact femtosecond you go
over it?

What if the phone is shutting the data off automatically? Like the Data Usage
settings on Android?

~~~
ceejayoz
The article cites "6.00900; GB 6.00200; GB 6.01100 GB; and 6.00400 GB". Even
if the phone's handling it, a megabyte or two could easily be explained by the
occasional dropped HTTP request that Verizon sees but the phone doesn't count.

------
delinka
I recently got two iPads with a data plan on Verizon. I'm absolutely paranoid
about overages. First thing I did, right out of the box, was pick through all
the data-related settings. Wifi assist? No thanks. I'm paranoid enough about
it that I turn cell data off unless I'm on the road.

Thus far, three months in, I can say I'm not dissatisfied with the service.
I'm not thrilled about the data rate, but the "competition" sells the same
thing at about the same price.

~~~
gambiting
Does US not have pay-as-you-go plans at all? I have a pay as you go sim in UK,
top it up automatically every month ~$20 and that gives me 4GB of data. It
gives me peace of mind because I literally can't spend more than what I topped
up, it's guaranteed no surprises at the end of the month.

~~~
Broken_Hippo
They do, and they are slowly improving, but there are a lot of flaws in the
system. From what I read that is getting better in the last few years, but
there is still a lot to be desired. It has been a few years since I lived in
the states, though.

I was paying more than that with a prepaid "plan" with less data, for example.
The service is generally more expensive - I just happen to be a light user so
it worked out for me. But if I call an 800 number or answer a phone call? I
get charged. Plans subsidize the cost of the phone: Pre-paid does not, and the
selection is generally full of refurbished phones and models 1-2 generations
out of date. Most didn't have the option of the newest phone if you were on
prepay. It used to be that some prepaid services wouldn't work on other
networks or would charge so much it wasn't feasible (verizon wouldn't work on
at&t network).

Some companies simply don't offer international calling or texting on a
prepaid plan: I had an issue where the company suddenly started charging extra
for international texts because Norway suddenly wasn't on their list of
included countries - and that was the entire reason I paid for that bulk
texting.

I also found the customer service to be lacking. One company refused online
customer service for prepaid customers: More than one had special, seemingly
second class call centers for prepaid customers.

Simply put: I think the pay-as-you-go is probably a better setup there than in
the states.

------
chiefalchemist
Video chews up data REALLY quick. Video views on FB and IG are up, probably up
on TW as well. So when people say, "My habits haven't really changed..." they
probably don't realize what a difference video makes. It's not like the
adverts promote this.

Even using say just IG and scrolling a lot is gonna crew up data. Not as much
as video, obviously, but if you're drifting from TW or FB to more IG then I
could see more data being used.

As for usage while sleeping, usage while off, etc. Well, obviously that's a
BIG problem. I'm not making excuses but probably no surprise. Computers aren't
perfect, are they?

~~~
pluma
I wish there was a way to make YouTube remember I don't want to watch videos
in 1080p60 when I'm on the go. I always have to make sure it's not on HD when
I leave the house just because I may have reset it to "auto" while watching at
home on WiFi.

This is especially annoying when the first thing it shows is an unskippable 30
second ad with no option to adjust the quality because it's an ad.

------
1945
I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned, just enable Safety Mode and avoid
overages..

[https://www.verizonwireless.com/support/safety-mode-
faqs/](https://www.verizonwireless.com/support/safety-mode-faqs/)

~~~
amock
That's only been available for a short while and only on new plans.

------
Johnny555
For what it's worth, my usage reported by Verizon is typically within about 5%
of what my phone reports. I just double checked and right now Verizon says
I've used 2345MB and my phone says 2.26GB.

~~~
gregrata
That's 2.35 GB vs 2.26GB - how is that 5%

~~~
Lazare
Is this sarcasm or...?

The difference between those two numbers is 0.09 GB. 0.09 is 3.8% of 2.35, or
4.0% of 2.26, so whichever way you look at it, it would be correct to say the
difference is "within 5%".

~~~
dmckeon
The difference is even smaller if GB are power-of-2 Gibibytes: 2345MB is
2.29GB.

~~~
Flimm
Verizon could be using one definition of GB and the phone another. (One more
reason to use the unambiguous MiB, GiB units.)

------
nishaad78
This is one reason I'm happy to be in Hong Kong...I have unlimited data on LTE
:)

~~~
soylentcola
Some US carriers offer this as well. The problem is typically that the largest
carriers (mostly re-formed from the same telco monopoly that was broken up
decades ago) use their market advantage to avoid this sort of thing. Why offer
unlimited data when you have the only towers in a region and you can rake in
overage fees from a captive audience?

------
unclebucknasty
Been getting slammed with Verizon overages lately myself the past several
months. Habits haven't really changed but suddenly my wife and are each using
roughly 3X more data.

Used Android usage features and, sure enough, it shows roughly the same as
Verizon. And most is Web data.

Still, something seems awfully fishy. I wonder if Verizon's Web gateway or
similar could be the problem? I need to do some comparisons with Wi-Fi to
check whether page sizes, etc are the same.

Otherwise, maybe a Chrome or other update?

Anyway,something has absolutely changed--literally from one month to the next
--starting a few months back.

------
DiabloD3
Bad article, but if Verizon is significantly lying about data usage, well, the
FCC is going to crawl so far up their ass it's going to look like _that scene_
from Alien when this is all over.

~~~
Johnny555
And if they are caught doing something illegal, they'll face a few million
dollar fine so the FCC can show how tough they are, while Verizon will keep a
hundred million dollars in ill gotten profits.

~~~
theandrewbailey
And whatever fine the FCC (or other government agency) gives them will not be
sufficient to teach Verizon that this behavior is unacceptable.

~~~
saretired
Yup. The FCC fined Verizon $1.35 million for using supercookies without users'
permission, which is unlikely to change the behavior of a company that paid
its 4 top executives over $40 million in total in 2015.

------
joelmbell
I know this sounds a bit crazy, but I'd be willing to wager that a significant
chunk of data usage skyrocketing in the past few months is due to Pokemon Go.

~~~
RickS
Unrelated to OP, this was a huge concern when pokemon go came out.

However, it turned out not to be the case. [http://www.techinsider.io/how-
much-data-is-pokmon-go-using-2...](http://www.techinsider.io/how-much-data-is-
pokmon-go-using-2016-7)

about 3mb/hr, light relative to most photo/video heavy social apps.

~~~
joelmbell
Interesting! Thanks for the link.

------
ap22213
Timely article. I recently switched to VZ from ATT where I'd been a customer
for years. At ATT, I had a grandfathered unlimited plan. Before I switched, I
checked my max monthly data usage from the previous few months. The max was
way under 3 GB / mo. After I switched to VZ, I was hitting the 5 GB limit
after only 25 days. How can that be?

~~~
kalleboo
Did you change phones to one with a different data usage pattern (e.g., bigger
screen -> higher resolution video and graphics)? Or, just the factory settings
on the new phone could have stuff like Facebook Video Auto-play reverted back
to on. If you have a faster connection now, video apps might be loading 1080p
video instead of 360p.

You can't really make these claims without actually comparing what apps used
how much data on your phone

------
DocG
Havin data limit and if exceeded limiting speed is default way of doing things
in this part of europe. No overcharges ever.

------
davidf18
I have been a Verizon customer for about 4 years since the iPhone 5 came out.
My data usage sometimes varies a great deal depending if I'm out of town or
not. I always check a couple of days before the end of my billing cycle and I
can increase the plan for that month. Now the plans have larger bin sizes and
it easier keeping to one plan. Because of my methods I would frequently
receiving "over data" text messages as a warning.

Also if one installs the Verizon iPhone app you can use a widget so I see my
usage daily when checking the weather and schedule and so on.

I also recommend buying the omnistat app that shows you data consumed real
time.

~~~
matwood
I would recommend not using Verizon.

~~~
function_seven
I've tried T-Mobile and AT&T. Both carriers were substantially worse than VZ
for mobile data speeds and dropped calls. Not just a little. Tremendously
worse. The LTE on them was slower and more intermittent than VZ's 3G coverage.

The switch back to VZ from AT&T (after just 3 months) cost me hundreds of
dollars, and was still worth it. (Thankfully T-Mobile had a weeklong trial
program that saved me from going through with that switch)

VZ gets away with higher pricing and abusive customer support because their
network is unmatched in my opinion. My experience is obviously anecdata, and I
don't live in a densely populated city, so that may be worth noting.

~~~
davidf18
In my market, NYC, VZ is by far the best provider. It has far more spectrum
than AT&T, which esp for Manhattan is really important because of the density
of people. Moreover, we have many large steel and concrete buildings and VZ
gets the strongest signal.

Data usage has grown dramatically and the spectrum availability in your market
can make a difference. VZ, AT&T, and others have purchased AWS-3 Band 66
spectrum which they are brining on-line but the iPhone 7 and Galaxy 7 chips
don't support it.

It is 10 AM ET and I just ran a Speedtest in Upper West Side Manhattan and
have 41 Mbits/sec down and 6.5 up on iPhone 7+.

On iPhones, install the VZ App, install the widget, get the Omnistat app and
that should help with knowing your data usage.

------
pascalxus
Come on people, switch to a carrier that doesn't charge over-limit fees, like
USmobile.com (see my comment below).

Also, it's very easy to see which apps are using the most data. Just keep an
eye on them, where it shows the highest data usage. Delete all apps that use
more than X amount of data and switch to a competing app.

As long as we have choices, businesses and apps must bend to our will. How
long do you think Pokemon Go would last if everyone stopped using it because
it used too much data? We are consumers, and as long as there is competition,
we are All powerful.

------
SamReidHughes
I get 50% and 75% warnings from Verizon in both text message and email, so I
haven't had to worry one bit about exceeding my 1 GB limit.

~~~
blawson
AT&T does something similar - 75% and 90%. I learned the hard way it can't be
relied on to be timely!

I received a 75% warning on a Friday night from them, continued to use data
(some streaming), and never got the 90% warning, until Monday morning when I
received about 20 text messages saying I had used 90%, then 100%, resulting in
the automatic purchase of 1 GB more, then 75%, 90%, etc. Even with their
credit for the misunderstanding it still cost me > $150 for that lesson.

~~~
matt_wulfeck
This is by design.

------
uptown
I go with Verizon prepaid for about $40/month with a small data allocation.
Can buy add on data packs in 3gb blocks that roll over for 3 months and
tethering is included.

------
jmspring
Verizon is good about sending text messages when you get close to limits.

Not sure how people didn't notice...

~~~
withdavidli
Van Dinter comment in the article:

The usage Verizon logs is just an estimate for that moment in time. So if
you're notified that you're over this evening, you may have actually gone over
yesterday.

------
RickS
Others are correct that this article is of very low quality.

But that doesn't change the fact that data caps are arbitrarily set cash-grabs
and should be either abolished entirely on both home and mobile plans, or
should be regulated to have consistent costs that are tiered sanely, rather
than the current "friendly allotment, arm-and-leg overage" model.

------
cathartes
I signed up with a Verizon Wireless data plan a few days before the close of
2015 after moving to a new place. Initially paranoid about data usage and
Verizon's integrity in reporting such, I maintained activity logs on all my
machines with vnstat (0). But I became more at ease after a few months when I
determined that Verizon's reported usage always stayed slightly below vnstat's
report for each network interface (which also includes network traffic that
only takes place on the LAN or with the router device itself that isn't
actually sent over the airwaves).

I won't suggest the article's complaints are baseless, however, even if the
article itself reflects the poor community journalism I remember expecting
from the Post-Standard. Because even if Verizon isn't falsifying usage data
for users, the whole game _is_ partly rigged! A typical user has no idea what
their actual usage is, or what their devices do automagically in their
absence. I've seen 10 GB prepaid cell data allowances get liquidated the very
evening of the day they were topped off by project volunteers using laptops.
In one case, a user checking and writing email forgot to disable Windows
Updates. In another instance, the user had no concept of how large the neat
videos he uploaded to the project's FB page actually were. Without a real
concept of how much data they actually use, most users will end up finding a
data plan mostly by trial & error--they will go as cheap as they can, and
incrementally adjust to a larger plan when they "go over" (rinse & repeat). I
think of the numerous uncomfortable talks and arguments in households
everywhere based on stupid ideas of what constitutes data use, and parents who
are no better informed than their children about what they can do to actually
reduce household data usage.

And yes, turning off automatic updates, "wifi assist", and other settings is
good advice. Except that many of these settings have a mysterious way of
getting re-enabled in commercial OSes. Why is it necessary for users to
constantly police their own device settings because the Apples, Microsofts,
and Googles of the world have other ideas? If you're running a non-libre OS
(which is unavoidable on smart phones, presently), you might as well expect
some hardship here. Your device does what it wants, because its makers don't
think it actually belongs to you.

I suspect that the main reason my experience with Verizon Wireless has been
nearly painless (if not inexpensive) is because I keep only a dumb phone and
several machines installed with Slackware. My data usage may be larger some
months, but I always know why! It's never a surprise.

0: [http://humdi.net/vnstat/](http://humdi.net/vnstat/)

------
don_draper
Anecdotally, I use Google Fi in the DC are and love it.

------
prklmn
iOS wifi assist feature at work here most likely...unless Verizon is making up
usage, which wouldn't surprise me

~~~
ceejayoz
Wifi assist plus Facebook's auto-play videos, I'd wager.

~~~
crottypeter
Maybe the connection speed has gone up and as a result facebook (and other
video services) serves HD where it used to serve low-res video.

This would explain why the user behaviour doesn't have to change but the data
usage does.

------
skynetv2
this is exactly why i moved to TMo

------
haimez
Erm... Terrible article.

