Combination of iPad 4G LTE & data caps characterized as a 'speed trap' - Page 3

I'll say it again it must really suck living in the US sometimes. Data caps are awefull I mean what is the point of having this incredible network if your just going to get cut off after 4 days of use. I do about 5 GBs every 4 - 5 days. We don't have have LTE here in Switzerland but 18MBS download speeds with unlimited data for 50 euros a month isn't bad either.

I've been using cellular on my iPad 2 and now on my new iPad. I've never gone over the limit because I'm careful, but it was never hard with 3G. Now, with LTE, you see the benefit of having the speed. You can get a lot more done when you're not waiting for things to load. But you end up using more data.

I'm all for being responsible and I don't really feel sorry for anyone who isn't being careful, but that doesn't mean that I don't think these data caps are more absurd now than they have ever been. What in heavens name is the point of having such a great network if it is of next to no benefit to the consumer? At this point, it's like having a calling plan with 20 minutes of anytime talk time while still charging a premium price.

If I had to guess, I'd bet that this has a lot to do with the fact that so many areas aren't on LTE yet and thus would still be stuck on a 3G network where congestion is more of a concern. But why not then set up plans that compensate for that? Seeing as LTE is more robust than any 3G network, why not allow for a plan that allows 1 GB on 3G at a base price of $20 and then $10 for LTE access with a 10 GB cap on LTE? It'd be a bit like back in the day when you paid more for national coverage or roaming. People who don't have or don't want LTE could pay a little less and those who want LTE could pay a bit more and be able to take full advantage of the LTE network.

Something has to give. These low data caps on a 4G network are just silly. I'm not saying everyone should start streaming video by a longshot, but even for the most basic of uses, on LTE, these low caps are going to be a bigger and bigger issue. Just wait until more websites and emails start utilizing higher quality graphics and images more suited for high dpi screens like the new iPad and upcoming personal computers. It's only going to get worse.

I believe the way most of those speed tests are run is that a fixed amount of data is transmitted and they measure the time. So while 3G takes longer than LTE, it's the same amount of data.

I could be wrong, though.

That is correct.

i was about to curse you out and say why do u care if the corps make a profit, but after the apple fact all i can say is Damn!!
i still think unlimited means unlimited. Why is South Korea way better than us when it comes to 3G and 4G?
And why cant i watch netflix on my phone??? This is America last i checked. Were suppose to be #1 in Tech but because of greedy old corp farts, advances in tech are being held up.
Did you know the PS4 has been good to go for 2 years? Why haven't they released it?? Because people still buy PS3's like crazy. Once again Corp Greed. I pay $4 for gas and Exxon mobile declares record profits. REALLY??????

I'm curious how often someone would need to use LTE to stream video. LTE wasn't meant to replace wi-fi was it?

Road trips or when one goes out of town.
Or for the kids in the car

Seems like the only real way to solve the Data issue might be to roll out City wide WiFi or something like ultra long range WiFi to cover large areas. If Apple keeps rolling these devices out were going to run out of bandwidth on the Cell Towers...

Agreed, ignorance is rarely a valuable argument. I will say it might be a good gesture on Apple's part to have a nice, large print, card giving some brief tips about how to avoid unnecessary data usage.

1) Use wifi hotspots when possible

2) Try to only download app updates over wifi

3) Stream video across wifi when possible

4) Run backups when connected to wifi

5) Actually, when possible always try to use wifi

However, I don't think you can get a data-only plan for a phone to make it an equal comparison. With an iPad, you're not paying for the voice service.


Apple doesn't earn a 50% profit. Keep in mind that gross margin isn't profit. It means something very specific, and it excludes a lot of expenses.

It's not the speed that rips you off it's the prebuffering that kills you. On 3G you play a video for 20 seconds before you decide it's not for you you watched 2MB of video but prebuffered 5MB. On 4G you prebuffered the entire clip in 10 seconds and now you have a 22MB hole in your pocket before you even had a chance to realize the video sucked.

My advice to apple is to turn have a setting that disables all media content when enabled. No flashy videos or other bandwidth vaporizing crap. The carriers would disagree with this but heck you can't FaceTime on 4G but you can watch YouTube videos? Kinda backwards to me. Probably cause FaceTime can't prebuffer 2 minutes of the future while you're in conversation.

Ripoff scammers!

Sprint should air an ad of a guy buying his Verizon/AT&T iPad and showing it off to his friends outside and then have the can you hear me now guy come on screen 2 minutes later explaining to him he burned his monthly allotment saying the phrase can you feel me now?

the biggest problem consumers face in dealing with this is the sheer lack of understanding of how bandwidth functions. The carriers have done a kick ass job in twisting the situation into a win for themselves. It serves to generate profit whilst blaming their customers who use the very service they sell. And it's kind of effective. Certainly, they get away with it. But it's especially disturbing when you see people vehemently back the telcos and succumb to this mentality that there are greedy boogiemen customers who greedily take the bits right out of everyone else's mouth as if it were a cookie jar. How very socialist of them

If you find yourself describing bandwidth as if it were gasoline or oil, then you have been manipulated by the telcos marketing of bandwidth. And consequently, are asserting an opinion based on false information.

If anything, the advent of 4G only spotlights how bandwidth has been commoditized for profit all while stagnating the adoption of better technology.

No, this is the Apple's way to repay the carriers. Now people with the new iPad need to shell out additional $money to the carriers monthly. I'll just stick to my old iPad before I get a raise, or just buy the wi-fi only one. But soon the carriers will put a limit to the wi-fi usage too... Maybe they already did.

6) Buy the wifi only iPad.

The car will drive 500 miles per hour, but will run out of gas in 10 minutes.

Repurpose the switch on the side to turn on and off LTE?

7) Create your own nationwide UMTS/HSPA/HSPA+/LTE network and charge less for its use.

That's if the wireless connection is a lake (it's not), and if this metered plan was a serious way of keeping the network from being clogged. It's a way of making more money on use.

They could give up their metering of wired phone calls, maybe. No more calling plans. Pay only for extra services or business services. Then they put that money into increasing network capacity. And they would start throttling signals only when you hit a crowded tower, so that could stay in operation. That would actually relieve local congestion, which is what they say the problem is. Throttling is just the way you'd treat people around crowded towers during a time of the day, so fewer people have dropped calls.

Big regulation will be necessary. One rule: the closest to the phone grabs the call, and passes it back to the carrier, for a charge. So erecting more towers in all crowded areas would be incentivized, and competition would take care of it.

The thing is, this isn't the way to make money, by creating artificial scarcity and charging you money. They're crying technological poormouth, and charging us a ton.

Time to put the wired network to sleep, or give it to the Federal government or something. We want 50Mbps down!

While what you say is true, if the carriers followed your advice, they'd up the data caps on 4g plans. The reason: 4g uses spectrum more efficiently than 3g. A single phone using the same space over the air can transfer much more data. So from the carriers perspective, these 4g users are using less resources to download the same 1GB file as a 3g user.

Hopefully the carriers respond in time and offer reasonable data limits, and reasonable pricing schemes. The fact of the matter is the telecom companies in the USA are horrible with their pricing, and attempt to extract every last dollar from their customers. Most of their overage charges are just plain extortion.

Phil

I've never understood why anyone would buy a 3G or 4G iPad and be restricted to the same usage limits that a smartphone goes through in any given time period. If you're on the Internet so much that WiFi and tethering to your smartphone isn't enough, isn't it highly likely that you will blast through a few GB in just a few days, perhaps even hours?

I know that tethering my laptop to my iPhone can quickly generate 500MB to 1GB in just ONE session. Never mind streaming a whole movie on Netflix, just all those graphics, videos, flash sites/ads, etc. can eat up tons of data. What if you're tethering a Windows-based computer and have automatic updates turned on, along with a constant "stream" of anti-virus definitions, a new version of Firefox and Chrome, etc., etc. Even if you just let it sit there, it will run over the limit all by itself if you forget to turn it off. I don't want to constantly have to check how much data I have left, especially when checking your data limit runs through even more data. lol...

Why would it? This is exactly the situation the networks wanted to create.

There are lots of different ways to use the data. For example, what worked for me is that I downloaded videos or large data files only when I was on WiFi, but when I was out of range of 3G, I would just do email and very limited web browsing. So I was able to always be in touch via 3G, but did my heavy downloading via WiFi so my data limit was plenty.

Wow, I am deeply impressed by your data saving skills. Seriously my phone bills would be astronomical in size as I download at least 5GB every 3 - 4 days. If I had LTE that number would increase x2. In Switzerland my contract with Swisscom is about 140 dollars a month for unlimited everything, data, voice, SMS, MMS and TV and I get about 42 Mbit's with HSPA+. I can only imagine what LTE brings, if anyone can tell me that would be nice, wait maybe it will make me too sad, let me guess 80 Mbit's plus.

In response to all the people who say consumers just need to be careful about overages, thank you for providing a clear, common scenario that quickly wastes data on LTE. Note that HD video will waste data even faster.

The upstream component is ostensibly the reason Facetime is disallowed over LTE, but still. really. really?

So you are paying $25/month for cellular data but you are not using it?
If you do not have a data plan, there is no need to disable cellular data...

Even when I use my data plan for casual surfing and E-mail I use more then 5GB a month. I cannot comprehend how a company like AT&T and Verizon can charge 50$ a month for such little data. I would go insane or broke because of my phone bill. I truly feel sorry for you guys, the Telecom situation in the US is a complete nightmare. I am so thankful that I have access to an unlimited data plan.

Not my problem. If you're not bright enough to figure out what your cell phone plan allows and what it's going to cost you, you have no one to blame but yourself.

Not all of us. I have been paying for unlimited for two years on my AT&T iPhones and my iPads.

Figured this would happen. Wonder how unlimited unlimited really is?

Bob

Uuuh, did you read my entire post or just glanced at it and assumed you knew what I was talking about. I was being simpathetic to another poster who has to make due with a very small data plan. I have an unlimited data plan. I don't have to worry about watching anything except maybe a letter asking me if I could keep my downloading under a terabyte, A letter which I have received by the way, it was last November. We were remodeling our house and we had to live in a hotel for a while. What would the bill at Verizon be for instance if I downloaded say 500GB when I only had a 10GB data plan, which I assume is the largest plan you guys have in the states. 1,000 dollars, 2,000, how much, I'm sure it's an astronomical amount of money.

Unlimited plans have nothing to do with the carrier bottleneck. It's the amount of data being pushed through at that moment. The data caps are purely so the companies can charge more for data.

Not bad. I wish US carriers could do better. $80 USD buys 10GB on Verizon, and that's only a third of your use.


Verizon and ATT no longer have unlimited data plans.

Maybe if things such as call quality and signal stability weren't questionable?

None of which changes the point. If a person with a data plan exceeds that plan by such a huge amount, they're going to be charged for it. People should know what they're signing up for and act accordingly. If someone has a 2 GB plan and downloads 500 GB, they should expect to pay lots of money - and stop whining about being surprised by the bill.

One problem I see is, if I use the fuel metaphor often mentioned earlier in the thread, there is no equivalent of a "fuel gauge" on the dashboard. The current method of finding how much you've used is more cumbersome than getting a dipstick to check your tank level every time you want to know how much you have left.

Solutions:

1. Most motel chains offer free WiFi, unless you like to stay at places that really gouge you.

2. Pay upfront $100 extra for a 32GB memory model or $200 for a 64GB. Download a bunch of kids' movies from iTunes using WiFi at home or hotel and you'll never have to stream them over 4G LTE. Buying the extra memory will pay off in the long run.

Are you saying you're a data slut?

Really? It took me less than 10 seconds to do it on my iPhone - and I had to figure it out from scratch since it's not something I have done before.

OK, how did you do it? Logging into a user account on AT&T's site certainly isn't efficient.

But wait! Haven't you read all of the posts which clearly explain how that is technically and economically impossible??