7 ms·

Verizon iPhone Shows You Can’t Win: Carriers Hold the Cards

17 points by jenningsjason 16y ago

awolf 16y ago
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 16y ago
  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.
cma 16y ago
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 16y ago
  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.
cpr 16y ago
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.
- pinko 16y ago
  I take your point -- especially in today's market -- but those are selective examples. We don't by and large pay for metered roads or sidewalks or bike paths, for example. There are plenty of other unmetered public services -- and whether you like that or not, there's no inherent reason bandwidth couldn't be one of them.
- sethg 16y ago
  A fiber-optic line connected to a cell-phone tower costs pretty much the same amount to maintain, regardless of how many bits happen to be flowing through it. By contrast, water and power companies actually have expenses that scale according to customers’ day-by-day usage. On the one hand, I understand that a plan that gives everyone a free lunch can lead to overconsumption by a few, and once they use up the pipe that they share with me, my performance suffers. On the other hand, I wouldn’t want to have to think before opening every YouTube video, “hmm, is this going to put me over the limit?”
  - jsz0 16y ago
    Not so much so. Many cellular towers still use copper T1/DS3 uplinks but even if they are fed by fiber you're still paying for a committed level of bandwidth from a provider. Your circuit may have a 1Gbit/sec capacity but it can be provisioned at any speed. If the cellular provider was previously paying for 100Mbit/sec of bandwidth and now they need 300Mbit/sec that's an expense of scale.
- Bud 16y ago
  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 16y ago
    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?
kbd 16y ago
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 16y ago
  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 16y ago
    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 16y ago
      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?
richcollins 16y ago
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.
- GanjaHacker 16y ago
  Are there really government granted monopolies in the wireless space, or is the infrastructure cost too high of a barrier of entry for new participants?
- wmf 16y ago
  AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile doesn't count as competition? (Granted, the iPhone is only officially available on two of them.)
  - richcollins 16y ago
    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.

17 points by jenningsjason 16y ago

awolf 16y ago

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 16y ago
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.

cma 16y ago

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 16y ago
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.

cpr 16y ago

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.

pinko 16y ago
I take your point -- especially in today's market -- but those are selective examples. We don't by and large pay for metered roads or sidewalks or bike paths, for example. There are plenty of other unmetered public services -- and whether you like that or not, there's no inherent reason bandwidth couldn't be one of them.
sethg 16y ago
A fiber-optic line connected to a cell-phone tower costs pretty much the same amount to maintain, regardless of how many bits happen to be flowing through it. By contrast, water and power companies actually have expenses that scale according to customers’ day-by-day usage. On the one hand, I understand that a plan that gives everyone a free lunch can lead to overconsumption by a few, and once they use up the pipe that they share with me, my performance suffers. On the other hand, I wouldn’t want to have to think before opening every YouTube video, “hmm, is this going to put me over the limit?”
- jsz0 16y ago
  Not so much so. Many cellular towers still use copper T1/DS3 uplinks but even if they are fed by fiber you're still paying for a committed level of bandwidth from a provider. Your circuit may have a 1Gbit/sec capacity but it can be provisioned at any speed. If the cellular provider was previously paying for 100Mbit/sec of bandwidth and now they need 300Mbit/sec that's an expense of scale.
Bud 16y ago
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 16y ago
  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?

kbd 16y ago

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 16y ago
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 16y ago
  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 16y ago
    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?

richcollins 16y ago

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.

GanjaHacker 16y ago
Are there really government granted monopolies in the wireless space, or is the infrastructure cost too high of a barrier of entry for new participants?
wmf 16y ago
AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile doesn't count as competition? (Granted, the iPhone is only officially available on two of them.)
- richcollins 16y ago
  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.