I like this idea by Verizon, but 25 mb/month is way too low. My wife hardly does anything on her iPhone and she averages ~55-60 mb....
as I recall from another article that is just multimedia phones. SMARTphones (the iphone and similar) still require the $29 data plan which is a higher amount. that plan is also required if your device has been so labeled in their system. whereas apparently with the multimedia phone you can opt not to have a plan at all (and not use such services)
Because I DO use AT&T service in Bay Area and I know what I'm talking about
Again, nothing you?ve posted has anything to do with the thread. You just want come here and cry. Stay on track, try to be civil and at least make an attempt to be rational and this forum becomes a lot smoother.
Does that include any applicable taxes? In the UK you can now get unlimited calls and texts for £30 a month including tax, which equates to about $48. Why are mobile plans so expensive in the US?
much of the answer to that riddle is coverage. they don't always overlap so you are forced into one particular carrier to get good service.
another part is sim locking.
in the US it is legal to have a device restricted to a particular carrier for however long the two sides want. T-Mobile for example has and has had the Sidekick since it was first released. ATT currently has the iPhone, Sprint the Instinct and so on. If you want a certain device, you have to go with that carrier.
Since you are a captive audience, the carriers can do pretty much what they want.
As for the allegations that ATT will have to drop their prices, that is predicated on the belief that a Verizon iPhone is going to happen and soon. There's no proof so it is possible that ATT won't have to worry. Now if T-Mobile lowers prices it could be a problem because it has already been widely proven that the iphone does work on T-Mobile if you are ballsy enough to unlock the phone and destroy your warranty.
These plans are terrible. Clearly people know I have noted the value of the Select and Connect plans before. They are gone now and these plans are terrible.
I've priced T-mobile for my four member family. $130 gets us 1500 minutes to share on two smartphone dataplans and the kids share the minutes and get unlimited texting.
I'm going to buy my own equipment and move over. The price might even go lower if I get an employer discount.
Sorry Verizon, this is the straw that breaks the camel's back.
I like this idea by Verizon, but 25 mb/month is way too low. My wife hardly does anything on her iPhone and she averages ~55-60 mb....
for years now all the cheap VZW phones have had Get it Now and other internet data on them to watch TV, email, etc. most people didn't want it but the GUI and the buttons were designed to make you activate it accidentally and they would charge you $1.99 a month or so. and it was dog slow. people would call in to complain and get the charges taken off. i bet some people actually did use some little and tried to say it was an accident.
FCC complained so VZW said we'll just make everyone pay all the time and let them use it. problem solved. this is just a way to get an extra $10 a month out of people who don't want data
Again, nothing you?ve posted has anything to do with the thread. You just want come here and cry. Stay on track, try to be civil and at least make an attempt to be rational and this forum becomes a lot smoother.
He's explaining that the fact that the US is big with not much population concentration isn't a good explanation to why US cellular networks suck like they do. Example: big city problems. There's a huge population concentration and yet there are still network problems.
Other countries don't have these problems, even in huge population concentration cities like Paris, Madrid, Milan, etc.
In Europe, for 3G and 3.5G higher frequency bands are used than in the US. That means that more antennas are required and that means that there are less people per antenna so, with a well sized backbone network, high internet usage won't affect dropped calls.
In Andalusia (Spain) there's an 100% coverage of population with HSPA with 3.6down/1.4up Mbps speeds. Just so you can compare: Andalusia is the size of South Carolina, it does have double the inhabitants, but every single one of them has HSPA coverage by law.
....over and over every time these dumb articles get posted about Verizon, their pricing, and the iPhone. Verizon will destroy your wallet. Plain and simple. They cannot even get their pricing in line for an enV Touch with what I get for my iPhone on AT&T.
$9.99 for the first month at 25MB. Day 32 comes around and you look at your bill only to realize it's way higher for the month because you used 1GB of data at... $50/GB. So the next month you switch to their $30 a month plan to avoid the cashache of going over.
I hate Verizon for this reason, and they've been like this forever. Even their advertised prices aren't really what you can get when you actually go to purchase a phone. We need to get serious about separating the phones from the carriers, the content from the infrastructure, etc. Where the hell is the competition, Congress??
for years now all the cheap VZW phones have had Get it Now and other internet data on them to watch TV, email, etc. most people didn't want it but the GUI and the buttons were designed to make you activate it accidentally and they would charge you $1.99 a month or so. and it was dog slow. people would call in to complain and get the charges taken off. i bet some people actually did use some little and tried to say it was an accident.
FCC complained so VZW said we'll just make everyone pay all the time and let them use it. problem solved. this is just a way to get an extra $10 a month out of people who don't want data
DITTO THAT, pard. GRRR... My Motorola Adventure has a red button on the side that activates "Get-it-now" at a moment's notice, even when the danged phone's in my pants pocket. It'll eventually drain the battery to nil. There's a button on the other side that's supposed to "lock the keypad", but constant pressure on it also "unlocks the keypad." Guess what happens!
Anyway, how long will it be, before EVERY phone $VERIZON$ $ell$ qualifies for a must-have-the-data-plan $ervice? \
He's explaining that the fact that the US is big with not much population concentration isn't a good explanation to why US cellular networks suck like they do. Example: big city problems. There's a huge population concentration and yet there are still network problems.
Other countries don't have these problems, even in huge population concentration cities like Paris, Madrid, Milan, etc.
He picked out out one carrier and two cities. This is not the case among all cities and all carriers. Again, it has nothing to do with the infrastructure costs that the US has over much smaller, less populated countries. There are very real geo-technical issues at play.
Does that include any applicable taxes? In the UK you can now get unlimited calls and texts for £30 a month including tax, which equates to about $48. Why are mobile plans so expensive in the US?
Comparisions are often not fair because you are probably looking at some MVNO carrier in the UK. I can get $45 unlimited voice from Walmart on Verizon's network.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bartfat
That's because the wireless companies don't really compete with each other. They have various ways to keep this from happening, the non-shared wireless spectrum, the non-shared lines and infrastructure, and worse, they have termination fees that are through the roof on top of incompatible phones. So I'd say they barely compete with all these obstacles from making the consumer easily switching from each other and that's why it's so expensive in the US. However, the main problem I see is similar to the ISPs asking for more money by metered pricing, i.e. try to justify it as lower cost to the consumer, but really almost everyone that uses an iPhone will hit or use above that limit of 25MB a month and get dinged overage fees. It's bad PR, but Verizon is no stranger to that
It has NOTHING to do with anything you mentioned. UK has 5 national carriers and US has 4 national carriers --- that's the only difference. But now with 2 UK carriers merging and they will end up with 4 national carriers --- they will see the price going up.
You think American pro-rated ETF is unfair --- guess again. UK doesn't even have ETF --- you have to pay off the rest of the contract to get out a mobile contract in the UK.
It's amazing how vast the differences are between US and EU when it comes to telecommunication services. $69.99 for unlimited voice and text in US compared to $14.99 in EU. Am I the only one here who feels that Americans are being ripped off by their own companies?
No, sir. I am one of those ripped off by the telecommunication system here, which is set up for the benefit of the companies, not the users.
As nearly as I can figure out, the main cost of American cell phones is in the fact that Verizon, AT&T and all the rest have had to put up their own antennas, working on different data standards, to cover the entire country separately several times. If we had decided on a single standard, and perhaps a mandate for each system to accept the calls bound for another system without a fee, we would have the efficiency for which American industries have been vaunted in many other eras. But we are governed by an economic royalism, the right of capital to do whatever they want, for too long. Thus the separate towers for each incompatible CDMA or GSM phone is the rule. The endgame will come, I presume, when company A drives company B out of business and wins the right to charge whatever they want.
Now Apple has to get on board Verizon and all is well!
My AT&T iPhone costs me, all told, $78.20 a month with unlimited data, 450 minutes of calling, which is fine for me, and 200 text messages a month -- that covers me just fine. I'm over 30.
Cost isn't the problem with my AT&T account, coverage is.
It's amazing how vast the differences are between US and EU when it comes to telecommunication services. $69.99 for unlimited voice and text in US compared to $14.99 in EU. Am I the only one here who feels that Americans are being ripped off by their own companies?
Show me a real first world European country (not some 2nd world former eastern european country) from a top national carrier (not some unknown MVNO) that gives you that price.
I hate Verizon for this reason, and they've been like this forever. Even their advertised prices aren't really what you can get when you actually go to purchase a phone. We need to get serious about separating the phones from the carriers, the content from the infrastructure, etc. Where the hell is the competition, Congress??
And you end up with the Nexus One --- pay $200 ETF to T-Mobile and pay $350 ETF to Google.
There is plenty of competition in the US --- Verizon Wireless only has about 30% of the wireless market share in the US (a very small percentage when you compare it internationally).
As nearly as I can figure out, the main cost of American cell phones is in the fact that Verizon, AT&T and all the rest have had to put up their own antennas, working on different data standards, to cover the entire country separately several times.
Even if carriers use the same technology, they need to and do cover the county separately.
I hope that the current mess with standards and different frequencies will end when LTE come alive. Verizon and AT&T have already chosen LTE for the next generation. May be T-Mobile will join them. And it'll be great if we be able to use the same phone for 3 major carrier
When I first heard this story, one of the reasons given was that 'some' areas have so much data usage that they are starting to have problems in these areas. The 2 areas mentioned were SF bay area & New York. So if Verizon is having trouble with heavy usage now, how could they possibly handle the iPhone?
A-List(with google voice as one of my numbers) $60
Beejive(All texting is unlimited, even to other mobiles) Free
Data plan(unlimited) $30
That A-List requires 900 minute plan, right?
Do you actually talk more than 900 NON-Night&Weekend minutes? Just curious.
You didn't, but so many people tout the biggest benefit of Google Voice being that you get all your calls for "free". That's a fallacy in and of itself, since you're paying for 900 minutes (1400 on the family plan) whether you use them or not...so the only thing you're getting for fee is the overage.
I don't even use the 500 minutes per month on my current plan up, but I'm much more an SMS-er than a Talk-er. It would actually cost me more per month to try to pull the Google Voice A-List trick.
And you end up with the Nexus One --- pay $200 ETF to T-Mobile and pay $350 ETF to Google.
There is plenty of competition in the US --- Verizon Wireless only has about 30% of the wireless market share in the US (a very small percentage when you compare it internationally).
Not you again
You honestly think tying the phones to the carriers promotes competition?
If the phone wasn't tied to T-Mobile, you wouldn't be paying anyone an ETF, so where are you going with that statement?
Your arguments for keeping things the way they are and the US's broadband infrastructure is better than everyone else's worldwide were unconvincing in the last thread, I hope you're not going to go down the same road with the US needs no reform in the cellular market, too.
There isn't enough overlapping coverage and direct competition amongst carriers in the US, and it allows a similar oligopoly to cable and telco's. Regional monopolies, who can collaborate to manipulate pricing and stifle innovation. If Apple never came out with the iPhone and scared the hell out of these companies, you'd still be rocking a RAZR and paying $80 a month for your service. It took an outsider to shake it up.
I know you?re kidding, but just to be clear for some posters, countries like Russia and Canada maintain their populations is a small percentage of the country
which is why i still don't have 3G on Rogers at the end of the road in Canada.
however - they now have competition from Telus, who seemed to have no problem switching network technologies AND getting 3G out here. if only Canada didn't have those ridiculous 3 year contracts...
Comments
I like this idea by Verizon, but 25 mb/month is way too low. My wife hardly does anything on her iPhone and she averages ~55-60 mb....
as I recall from another article that is just multimedia phones. SMARTphones (the iphone and similar) still require the $29 data plan which is a higher amount. that plan is also required if your device has been so labeled in their system. whereas apparently with the multimedia phone you can opt not to have a plan at all (and not use such services)
Because I DO use AT&T service in Bay Area and I know what I'm talking about
Again, nothing you?ve posted has anything to do with the thread. You just want come here and cry. Stay on track, try to be civil and at least make an attempt to be rational and this forum becomes a lot smoother.
much of the answer to that riddle is coverage. they don't always overlap so you are forced into one particular carrier to get good service.
another part is sim locking.
in the US it is legal to have a device restricted to a particular carrier for however long the two sides want. T-Mobile for example has and has had the Sidekick since it was first released. ATT currently has the iPhone, Sprint the Instinct and so on. If you want a certain device, you have to go with that carrier.
Since you are a captive audience, the carriers can do pretty much what they want.
As for the allegations that ATT will have to drop their prices, that is predicated on the belief that a Verizon iPhone is going to happen and soon. There's no proof so it is possible that ATT won't have to worry. Now if T-Mobile lowers prices it could be a problem because it has already been widely proven that the iphone does work on T-Mobile if you are ballsy enough to unlock the phone and destroy your warranty.
I've priced T-mobile for my four member family. $130 gets us 1500 minutes to share on two smartphone dataplans and the kids share the minutes and get unlimited texting.
I'm going to buy my own equipment and move over. The price might even go lower if I get an employer discount.
Sorry Verizon, this is the straw that breaks the camel's back.
I like this idea by Verizon, but 25 mb/month is way too low. My wife hardly does anything on her iPhone and she averages ~55-60 mb....
for years now all the cheap VZW phones have had Get it Now and other internet data on them to watch TV, email, etc. most people didn't want it but the GUI and the buttons were designed to make you activate it accidentally and they would charge you $1.99 a month or so. and it was dog slow. people would call in to complain and get the charges taken off. i bet some people actually did use some little and tried to say it was an accident.
FCC complained so VZW said we'll just make everyone pay all the time and let them use it. problem solved. this is just a way to get an extra $10 a month out of people who don't want data
Again, nothing you?ve posted has anything to do with the thread. You just want come here and cry. Stay on track, try to be civil and at least make an attempt to be rational and this forum becomes a lot smoother.
He's explaining that the fact that the US is big with not much population concentration isn't a good explanation to why US cellular networks suck like they do. Example: big city problems. There's a huge population concentration and yet there are still network problems.
Other countries don't have these problems, even in huge population concentration cities like Paris, Madrid, Milan, etc.
In Europe, for 3G and 3.5G higher frequency bands are used than in the US. That means that more antennas are required and that means that there are less people per antenna so, with a well sized backbone network, high internet usage won't affect dropped calls.
In Andalusia (Spain) there's an 100% coverage of population with HSPA with 3.6down/1.4up Mbps speeds. Just so you can compare: Andalusia is the size of South Carolina, it does have double the inhabitants, but every single one of them has HSPA coverage by law.
$9.99 for the first month at 25MB. Day 32 comes around and you look at your bill only to realize it's way higher for the month because you used 1GB of data at... $50/GB. So the next month you switch to their $30 a month plan to avoid the cashache of going over.
I hate Verizon for this reason, and they've been like this forever. Even their advertised prices aren't really what you can get when you actually go to purchase a phone. We need to get serious about separating the phones from the carriers, the content from the infrastructure, etc. Where the hell is the competition, Congress??
for years now all the cheap VZW phones have had Get it Now and other internet data on them to watch TV, email, etc. most people didn't want it but the GUI and the buttons were designed to make you activate it accidentally and they would charge you $1.99 a month or so. and it was dog slow. people would call in to complain and get the charges taken off. i bet some people actually did use some little and tried to say it was an accident.
FCC complained so VZW said we'll just make everyone pay all the time and let them use it. problem solved. this is just a way to get an extra $10 a month out of people who don't want data
DITTO THAT, pard. GRRR...
Anyway, how long will it be, before EVERY phone $VERIZON$ $ell$ qualifies for a must-have-the-data-plan $ervice?
He's explaining that the fact that the US is big with not much population concentration isn't a good explanation to why US cellular networks suck like they do. Example: big city problems. There's a huge population concentration and yet there are still network problems.
Other countries don't have these problems, even in huge population concentration cities like Paris, Madrid, Milan, etc.
He picked out out one carrier and two cities. This is not the case among all cities and all carriers. Again, it has nothing to do with the infrastructure costs that the US has over much smaller, less populated countries. There are very real geo-technical issues at play.
Comparisions are often not fair because you are probably looking at some MVNO carrier in the UK. I can get $45 unlimited voice from Walmart on Verizon's network.
That's because the wireless companies don't really compete with each other. They have various ways to keep this from happening, the non-shared wireless spectrum, the non-shared lines and infrastructure, and worse, they have termination fees that are through the roof on top of incompatible phones. So I'd say they barely compete with all these obstacles from making the consumer easily switching from each other and that's why it's so expensive in the US. However, the main problem I see is similar to the ISPs asking for more money by metered pricing, i.e. try to justify it as lower cost to the consumer, but really almost everyone that uses an iPhone will hit or use above that limit of 25MB a month and get dinged overage fees. It's bad PR, but Verizon is no stranger to that
It has NOTHING to do with anything you mentioned. UK has 5 national carriers and US has 4 national carriers --- that's the only difference. But now with 2 UK carriers merging and they will end up with 4 national carriers --- they will see the price going up.
You think American pro-rated ETF is unfair --- guess again. UK doesn't even have ETF --- you have to pay off the rest of the contract to get out a mobile contract in the UK.
It's amazing how vast the differences are between US and EU when it comes to telecommunication services. $69.99 for unlimited voice and text in US compared to $14.99 in EU. Am I the only one here who feels that Americans are being ripped off by their own companies?
No, sir. I am one of those ripped off by the telecommunication system here, which is set up for the benefit of the companies, not the users.
As nearly as I can figure out, the main cost of American cell phones is in the fact that Verizon, AT&T and all the rest have had to put up their own antennas, working on different data standards, to cover the entire country separately several times. If we had decided on a single standard, and perhaps a mandate for each system to accept the calls bound for another system without a fee, we would have the efficiency for which American industries have been vaunted in many other eras. But we are governed by an economic royalism, the right of capital to do whatever they want, for too long. Thus the separate towers for each incompatible CDMA or GSM phone is the rule. The endgame will come, I presume, when company A drives company B out of business and wins the right to charge whatever they want.
YEA BABY! Bring on those lower prices!!
That's hitting AT&T right in the b@lls!
Bout' time we got some competition!
Now Apple has to get on board Verizon and all is well!
My AT&T iPhone costs me, all told, $78.20 a month with unlimited data, 450 minutes of calling, which is fine for me, and 200 text messages a month -- that covers me just fine. I'm over 30.
Cost isn't the problem with my AT&T account, coverage is.
It's amazing how vast the differences are between US and EU when it comes to telecommunication services. $69.99 for unlimited voice and text in US compared to $14.99 in EU. Am I the only one here who feels that Americans are being ripped off by their own companies?
Show me a real first world European country (not some 2nd world former eastern european country) from a top national carrier (not some unknown MVNO) that gives you that price.
I hate Verizon for this reason, and they've been like this forever. Even their advertised prices aren't really what you can get when you actually go to purchase a phone. We need to get serious about separating the phones from the carriers, the content from the infrastructure, etc. Where the hell is the competition, Congress??
And you end up with the Nexus One --- pay $200 ETF to T-Mobile and pay $350 ETF to Google.
There is plenty of competition in the US --- Verizon Wireless only has about 30% of the wireless market share in the US (a very small percentage when you compare it internationally).
As nearly as I can figure out, the main cost of American cell phones is in the fact that Verizon, AT&T and all the rest have had to put up their own antennas, working on different data standards, to cover the entire country separately several times.
Even if carriers use the same technology, they need to and do cover the county separately.
I hope that the current mess with standards and different frequencies will end when LTE come alive. Verizon and AT&T have already chosen LTE for the next generation. May be T-Mobile will join them. And it'll be great if we be able to use the same phone for 3 major carrier
Att
A-List(with google voice as one of my numbers) $60
Beejive(All texting is unlimited, even to other mobiles) Free
Data plan(unlimited) $30
That A-List requires 900 minute plan, right?
Do you actually talk more than 900 NON-Night&Weekend minutes? Just curious.
You didn't, but so many people tout the biggest benefit of Google Voice being that you get all your calls for "free". That's a fallacy in and of itself, since you're paying for 900 minutes (1400 on the family plan) whether you use them or not...so the only thing you're getting for fee is the overage.
I don't even use the 500 minutes per month on my current plan up, but I'm much more an SMS-er than a Talk-er. It would actually cost me more per month to try to pull the Google Voice A-List trick.
And you end up with the Nexus One --- pay $200 ETF to T-Mobile and pay $350 ETF to Google.
There is plenty of competition in the US --- Verizon Wireless only has about 30% of the wireless market share in the US (a very small percentage when you compare it internationally).
Not you again
You honestly think tying the phones to the carriers promotes competition?
If the phone wasn't tied to T-Mobile, you wouldn't be paying anyone an ETF, so where are you going with that statement?
Your arguments for keeping things the way they are and the US's broadband infrastructure is better than everyone else's worldwide were unconvincing in the last thread, I hope you're not going to go down the same road with the US needs no reform in the cellular market, too.
There isn't enough overlapping coverage and direct competition amongst carriers in the US, and it allows a similar oligopoly to cable and telco's. Regional monopolies, who can collaborate to manipulate pricing and stifle innovation. If Apple never came out with the iPhone and scared the hell out of these companies, you'd still be rocking a RAZR and paying $80 a month for your service. It took an outsider to shake it up.
25MB is what?.....one good iPhone App?
Thanks to the data hogs, watch all the carriers raise the data rates and implement tiered plans. There simply is not enough bandwidth to go around.
Please define "data hogs".
I'm likely to take offense at your definition...
I know you?re kidding, but just to be clear for some posters, countries like Russia and Canada maintain their populations is a small percentage of the country
which is why i still don't have 3G on Rogers at the end of the road in Canada.
however - they now have competition from Telus, who seemed to have no problem switching network technologies AND getting 3G out here. if only Canada didn't have those ridiculous 3 year contracts...