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Carriers don't even fully provide what 4G is capable of, yet still advertising so-called 5G. I would be okay with 50gbit 4G LTE with an unlimited plan for the n

Carriers don't even fully provide what 4G is capable of, yet still advertising so-called 5G. I would be okay with 50gbit 4G LTE with an unlimited plan for the next 5 years at least until they figure out their new gimmicks.

ghettoimp 8y ago
That would be awesome. I could blow through my monthly data cap in 0.68 seconds...
- KenanSulayman 8y ago
  50Gbit/s = 6,25GB/s; if your cap was 25GB it would take 4 seconds.
  - seandhi 8y ago
    Don’t most mobile carriers cap at 5GB?
    - JoshGlazebrook 8y ago
      No. Most unlimited plans start deprioritization after 22GB.
      - joecool1029 8y ago
        It's 50GB now. I've been digging into how they do it as I'm a casual user of a few hundred GB/mo on both T-Mobile and Sprint. From what I can see and from the Sprint CTO's comments, the deprioritization happens on radio layer working on slices of around 30ms. If you are near cell edge, the scheduler will assign you less physical resource blocks. This deprioritization will affect you much less if you are near the tower as higher orders of modulation and less error correction plays into it. (Think out of a possible 100 or so blocks you could be assigned in a given timeframe, the blocks can either be slow due to poor radio conditions or fast) From my year or so of having a dedicated testing phone on T-Mobile, I can feel confident in saying what they say is true about speeds only being affected on congested sectors (not the full tower or region). Sprint I haven't had as much time with so I can only go with what they say is the case.
        JoshGlazebrook 8y ago
        Ah, Verizon is still 22GB for the "new verizon unlimited plan" and "Beyond unlimited". "Above unlimited" is 75GB, and "Go unlimited" deprioritization is possible from the start. I'm still on the "new verizon unlimited plan" which is the same that "beyond unlimited" provides, just at a cheaper price.
      - seandhi 8y ago
        Nice... I need to do some shopping for mobile plans. Thanks!
  - ghettoimp 8y ago
    My cap is 4GB. Verizon. :(
- 3o4xkp 8y ago
  I've never understood that line of reasoning... Does this mean anything at all? I want to watch videos, stream music and load pages as fast as possible. This is, occasional downloads. The fact that I have 50 Gbps doesn't mean I will spend all day using 100% of it.
  - nickcoury 8y ago
    Presumably it comes from a combination of things, e.g. 1. Streaming higher quality video. 2. Using mobile more often instead of needing to find WiFi. 3. Changing behavior to do things that you couldn’t before on a slower connection. 4. Faster rate of consumption due to faster load times.
    - rayiner 8y ago
      I do all those things, and in two months I’ve used 17 gigs on my iPhone XR. I’ve got eight devices on a Verizon unlimited plan with 25G soft cap, and I’ve never come up to the point where I’ve been throttled.
      - Bjartr 8y ago
        When I had a long bus commute (around an hour) I used over 10gb a week watching youtube
- scarejunba 8y ago
  I like Google Fi's model. You pay for what you use. A data cap is necessary when you want to sell "unlimited" but $x/gb makes more sense.
- zaroth 8y ago
  My last plan with AT&T I think was 10 or 15GB/month with rollover, which I had accumulated something like 30GB of data saved up over the last year. Then one day I got a text saying I had used all my data for the month, and I thought this was quite strange. I logged in to see the usage, and AT&T gives you an itemized bill showing data usage almost minute by minute — I think the resolution is 5 minutes intervals. Lo and behold they claimed I used 22GB in one 5 minute interval at some random point during the afternoon that day. I called about a half dozen times to complain and try to get it adjusted. The agents would say crazy things like, “well were you watching a video?”, or “did you download a large email attachment?” It didn’t matter that the iPhone they said did the download showed totally normal data usage stats on the phone itself. It didn’t even matter that moving that much data in 5 minutes was technically impossible. Even when I finally got an agent to admit it must be an error and that it would be impossible to move 22GB in 5 minutes, they said they would escalate the issue and then nothing ever happened. I never got those rollover data bytes back, and ultimately had to switch to an unlimited plan to protect from the fake overages. So I do worry about massive theoretical maximum throughout resulting in obscene charges with no way for the customer to prove the data transfer never happened.
  - _Schizotypy 8y ago
    What the hell, I don't even think that's theoretically possible considering their network speeds. Like even if you were downloading 1 22gb file that would take hours

ghettoimp 8y ago

That would be awesome. I could blow through my monthly data cap in 0.68 seconds...

KenanSulayman 8y ago
50Gbit/s = 6,25GB/s; if your cap was 25GB it would take 4 seconds.
- seandhi 8y ago
  Don’t most mobile carriers cap at 5GB?
  - JoshGlazebrook 8y ago
    No. Most unlimited plans start deprioritization after 22GB.
    - joecool1029 8y ago
      It's 50GB now. I've been digging into how they do it as I'm a casual user of a few hundred GB/mo on both T-Mobile and Sprint. From what I can see and from the Sprint CTO's comments, the deprioritization happens on radio layer working on slices of around 30ms. If you are near cell edge, the scheduler will assign you less physical resource blocks. This deprioritization will affect you much less if you are near the tower as higher orders of modulation and less error correction plays into it. (Think out of a possible 100 or so blocks you could be assigned in a given timeframe, the blocks can either be slow due to poor radio conditions or fast) From my year or so of having a dedicated testing phone on T-Mobile, I can feel confident in saying what they say is true about speeds only being affected on congested sectors (not the full tower or region). Sprint I haven't had as much time with so I can only go with what they say is the case.
      - JoshGlazebrook 8y ago
        Ah, Verizon is still 22GB for the "new verizon unlimited plan" and "Beyond unlimited". "Above unlimited" is 75GB, and "Go unlimited" deprioritization is possible from the start. I'm still on the "new verizon unlimited plan" which is the same that "beyond unlimited" provides, just at a cheaper price.
    - seandhi 8y ago
      Nice... I need to do some shopping for mobile plans. Thanks!
- ghettoimp 8y ago
  My cap is 4GB. Verizon. :(
3o4xkp 8y ago
I've never understood that line of reasoning... Does this mean anything at all? I want to watch videos, stream music and load pages as fast as possible. This is, occasional downloads. The fact that I have 50 Gbps doesn't mean I will spend all day using 100% of it.
- nickcoury 8y ago
  Presumably it comes from a combination of things, e.g. 1. Streaming higher quality video. 2. Using mobile more often instead of needing to find WiFi. 3. Changing behavior to do things that you couldn’t before on a slower connection. 4. Faster rate of consumption due to faster load times.
  - rayiner 8y ago
    I do all those things, and in two months I’ve used 17 gigs on my iPhone XR. I’ve got eight devices on a Verizon unlimited plan with 25G soft cap, and I’ve never come up to the point where I’ve been throttled.
    - Bjartr 8y ago
      When I had a long bus commute (around an hour) I used over 10gb a week watching youtube
scarejunba 8y ago
I like Google Fi's model. You pay for what you use. A data cap is necessary when you want to sell "unlimited" but $x/gb makes more sense.
zaroth 8y ago
My last plan with AT&T I think was 10 or 15GB/month with rollover, which I had accumulated something like 30GB of data saved up over the last year. Then one day I got a text saying I had used all my data for the month, and I thought this was quite strange. I logged in to see the usage, and AT&T gives you an itemized bill showing data usage almost minute by minute — I think the resolution is 5 minutes intervals. Lo and behold they claimed I used 22GB in one 5 minute interval at some random point during the afternoon that day. I called about a half dozen times to complain and try to get it adjusted. The agents would say crazy things like, “well were you watching a video?”, or “did you download a large email attachment?” It didn’t matter that the iPhone they said did the download showed totally normal data usage stats on the phone itself. It didn’t even matter that moving that much data in 5 minutes was technically impossible. Even when I finally got an agent to admit it must be an error and that it would be impossible to move 22GB in 5 minutes, they said they would escalate the issue and then nothing ever happened. I never got those rollover data bytes back, and ultimately had to switch to an unlimited plan to protect from the fake overages. So I do worry about massive theoretical maximum throughout resulting in obscene charges with no way for the customer to prove the data transfer never happened.
- _Schizotypy 8y ago
  What the hell, I don't even think that's theoretically possible considering their network speeds. Like even if you were downloading 1 22gb file that would take hours