Debate on whether you should offload smartphone data on WiFi, even though you pay for "unlimited"

[lynyrd65]

Not to mention, get rid of the FM band and every Joe Schmoe would have to stream wirelessly his fave former FM "station." The added network traffic for all of that streaming would likely more than offset any additional RF bandwidth.

 

AJ

I'm starting to think you don't want anyone to use any data at all.

[WiWavelength]

I'm starting to think you don't want anyone to use any data at all.

 

That is an exaggeration of my position, and you should know better. But many of you get rather defensive when I criticize constant, mindless use of cellular wireless data (streaming Pandora, etc.) because the shoe fits and, well, you are wearing it.

 

AJ

[lynyrd65]

That is an exaggeration of my position, and you should know better. But many of you get rather defensive when I criticize constant, mindless use of cellular wireless data (streaming Pandora, etc.) because the shoe fits and, well, you are wearing it.

 

AJ

There is a reason I'm on sprint and that reason is unlimited. I want unlimited because what other carriers charge for data is too much. Other carriers are resting on their laurels with data inventing new ways to make customers get and expect less. It strikes a nerve for me when people use the same jargon I hear from people who use other carriers like abuse and limiting yourself for the good of your carrier.

 

I am so incredibly sick of hearing how necessary it is to limit myself for the good of an organization I pay to provide what I want. AT&T people talk all the time about how tiered saved their network and how bad they needed it. I don't agree with it or believe one iota of it. People will use their network how they see fit, the difference is only revenue. I like the Sprint network because in the end I can afford it better than other carriers. You can criticize users for using the network how they see fit but that is the market that i believe Sprint is trying to serve and if they aren't then i will move elsewhere when they make me.

 

sent from my 3VO from another EVO

 

Edit: I love this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEjJyvwWvog

 

I know Sprint has to be going after the same target audience

[WiWavelength]

Anything done to excess is a menace. But how about this? For those of you who cannot exercise moderation when it comes to data usage, I will build a still in my backyard and make really cheap, poorly filtered alcohol. I will send you absolutely free an unlimited supply of booze so that you can proceed to drink yourselves to cirrhosis.

 

 

AJ

[Bob Newhart]

That is an exaggeration of my position, and you should know better. But many of you get rather defensive when I criticize constant, mindless use of cellular wireless data (streaming Pandora, etc.) because the shoe fits and, well, you are wearing it.

 

You do realise that a lot of us have a cell phone with a data plan specifically to stream mindless data such as pandora/spotify?

 

Speedtests use is for scientific purposes of course right?

[Feech]

I'm upset I didn't read this post earlier than now. I think everyone has a good point. I especially thought that the

Tragedy of the Commons was a great lesson and maybe something to look at. If Sprint were to say in a public forum that they would keep unlimited data at the price its currently at if they could off load usage to home networks and if they could monitor that was being done that would make me more likely to off load my usage. Unfortunately, we don't have that and it seems like the exact opposite may be done with Sprint making public statements indicating that they would possibly change the current structure.

 

I'm not one of the people that abuses the network but at the same time when I think about it will switch to wifi when at home (only at home) that is only because my speeds are so bad though. Not sure what I will do when LTE finally comes. I will likely use my phone in the same way.. Streaming music at my desk, to and from work and checking my social networks thru the day. I would still say less than 5GB per month. Bottom line Sprint will raise prices and or get rid of unlimited data and will give some excuse about needing to keep up with user demand. Until someone can show me that somehow the percentage of abusers is overwhelming the network I will never believe it anyway. That goes for all the carriers

 

Sent from my EVO LTE without LTE

 

 

[WiWavelength]

You do realise that a lot of us have a cell phone with a data plan specifically to stream mindless data such as pandora/spotify?

 

Maybe you ought to reconsider some of your intellectual priorities. The tragedy of the commons could just as aptly be called the tragedy of the commoners.

 

 

AJ

[Proxcee]

Question...

 

Is unlimited data really "unlimited" if you can't use it every second of the day without having to offload for any reason? Seems like we should redefine the word "unlimited". Maybe the data will remain "unlimited" as long as you "limit" how much you use it.

 

...not even the power of the Sun is unlimited. Just a thought...

 

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

 

 

[PythonFanPA]

For a more recent example, the Motorola Photon Q prompts users to connect to open WiFi networks, even if WiFi is shut off.

 

While I wholeheartedly agree and am fully onboard with the general principle being discussed in this thread (i.e. offloading to personal wi-fi at home if available), I just had to chime in on the above....because while I think the idea of Sprint offering incentives for people to actively follow this practice is an outstanding idea, speaking as an owner of the Photon Q, if literally every phone Sprint offers behaved the way the Q does by default (until you learn how to turn it off in the advanced wi-fi settings), I for one think you'd end up driving business away. For the first several days I had the phone, that 'feature' was annoying and irritating to the point of almost wanting run over the phone with a steamroller and bashing my head into a wall.

 

When someone pointedly turns wi-fi off, they generally intend for it to remain off unless they turn it back on; the Q will not simply only continually notification-'nudge' you to death to say 'hey, wi-fi is available here', it will eventually continually turn wi-fi back on if you don't respond in kind and use it. Until someone else pointed out on XDA that there was advanced settings there (I was completely new to ICS prior to getting the Q and wasn't used to the menu differential between it and Gingerbread), I was seriously considering returning the phone just based on that issue alone.

[WiWavelength]

While I wholeheartedly agree and am fully onboard with the general principle being discussed in this thread (i.e. offloading to personal wi-fi at home if available), I just had to chime in on the above....because while I think the idea of Sprint offering incentives for people to actively follow this practice is an outstanding idea, speaking as an owner of the Photon Q, if literally every phone Sprint offers behaved the way the Q does by default (until you learn how to turn it off in the advanced wi-fi settings), I for one think you'd end up driving business away.

 

You can certainly argue that it is a clumsy approach, but consider the open Wi-Fi default settings as the carrier's way of saying, "We really need you to Wi-Fi offload if at all possible, so we are going to help that along."

 

AJ

[S4GRU]

Question...

 

Is unlimited data really "unlimited" if you can't use it every second of the day without having to offload for any reason? Seems like we should redefine the word "unlimited". Maybe the data will remain "unlimited" as long as you "limit" how much you use it.

 

...not even the power of the Sun is unlimited. Just a thought...

 

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

 

I have never advocated forced offload. I am asking you to use common sense and decency to offload when at home and have WiFi available. You choosing to offload when it makes sense does not make Sprint any less unlimited. You make it sound like if you do not consume all your data from the Sprint network (even if you choose to offload) then all of a sudden Sprint smartphone data is not unlimited. That makes no sense.

 

If I choose not to eat dessert at the all you can eat buffet, but go to Baskin Robbins instead for that portion of my meal, that doesn't mean the buffet is no longer all you can eat, just because I decided not to eat every every possible bite there.

 

Robert

[PythonFanPA]

You can certainly argue that it is a clumsy approach, but consider the open Wi-Fi default settings as the carrier's way of saying, "We really need you to Wi-Fi offload if at all possible, so we are going to help that along."

 

AJ

 

I agree completely with the ideology certainly with Sprint attempting to communicate this thought process with its customers. And I know they already do this actually via other methods (case in point, I know I've received email 'mailers' encouraging people to use Wi-Fi at home just within the last few months from Sprint). There are probably other ways they could communicate/get their point across if they're creative enough. Your suggestion early on in the thread about monetizing the incentive is ingenius IMO, particularly in the current economy (not that I have any confidence they'd ever actually do that, but if they did and marketed the approach, think how much they'd stand to gain in conjunction with and as it reflects on the coming NV improvements).

 

But employing an attempted forced approach through default settings is only going to leave a negative impression for most people IMO and would serve to drive a great many away, particularly in the segment of the customer base who are completely non-savvy technically speaking. Your suggestion I just referenced vs. using this methodology is as simple a positive reinforcement vs. negative reinforcement contrast as I can possibly imagine. Or to put it another way and to use a phrase oft-used here in the south, you can catch more flies using honey than vinegar.

[stephendiamond]

Having read all the posts let me give my thoughts. I have an evo 3d, in my are we do not have wimax, but wimax has much better coverage then lte, so I am going to hold on to the 3d, and buy a note when it comes out. I will switch back and forth as needed. I live in a resort area. I have lousy sprint service during the summer, but sprint gave me an airave to help with my service. I have 100mb service from comcast, I use wifi at my house for the phone. I also do not restrict my airave, so anyone in range can use it. it uses very little bandwith, and I can tell by the blinking lights on the unit alot of people are connecting to it. I stay with sprint because I like the certainty of knowing what I will pay every month, and not worry about data use. I have the standard 450 plan, but with all cell calls being free I never come near my minute cap. Let me tell you about a friend of mine. His Dad had a heart attack and he was at the hospital for weeks, he used 1800 minutes on his 450 plan, because many members of the family only had land lines. Sprint saw the high used, they CALLED HIM and told him about an option not many people know about you can buy extra anytime minutes, as long as your billing cycle has not closed for $5.00 per hundred minutes, so instead of .35 cents a minute $21.00 an hour for a total of 310.00 he paid 65.00 a much easier bill to pay. I think the buffet post earlier said it best I like Sprint with unlimited data, I just think you need to be responsible. Not only is offloading much faster for me, I think it is simply the right thing to do. If Sprint doesnt make a profit, we are going to left with two carriers who will only go into profitable areas, and rural people will be relegated to third world infrastructure.

[koiulpoi]

For the first several days I had the phone, that 'feature' was annoying and irritating to the point of almost wanting run over the phone with a steamroller and bashing my head into a wall.

While I am certain you are using hyperbole, I do not recommend that as a solution to your problems. The $150 ERP deductible just to get the same phone, well... doesn't seem worth it.

 

While I do agree (I've used the phone for a bit), not only has the phone (the only one that does that) not seem to have been a very big seller, I have yet to have a single customer ask me about it, or even mention it. Most have no idea that WiFi is even a thing you can do. Most also regularly clear out the "29 updates available" notifications they get from Google Play, as well as "System Update Available" ones...

[PythonFanPA]

While I am certain you are using hyperbole, I do not recommend that as a solution to your problems. The $150 ERP deductible just to get the same phone, well... doesn't seem worth it.

 

While I do agree (I've used the phone for a bit), not only has the phone (the only one that does that) not seem to have been a very big seller, I have yet to have a single customer ask me about it, or even mention it. Most have no idea that WiFi is even a thing you can do. Most also regularly clear out the "29 updates available" notifications they get from Google Play, as well as "System Update Available" ones...

 

Yeah, many in my area in particular would likely not be savvy enough to have a wireless router to begin with unless either the setup instructions were dumbed down as much as possible or the ISP set it up for them (I'm sure the latter happens more than I probably think about on the surface these days though). And yes, I was just illustrating my frustration at the time, I'm actually not remotely prone to 'Hulk SMASH!' knee-jerk reactions or outbursts at all in actual real-world practice. *g*

[koiulpoi]

And yes, I was just illustrating my frustration at the time, I'm actually not remotely prone to 'Hulk SMASH!' knee-jerk reactions or outbursts at all in actual real-world practice. *g*

It's uncanny how many people will say things like "I'm about ready to smash this phone!"

What's worse are those who actually do.

[lynyrd65]

I threw an iPod touch out the window once, It survived.

[Proxcee]

I have never advocated forced offload. I am asking you to use common sense and decency to offload when at home and have WiFi available. You choosing to offload when it makes sense does not make Sprint any less unlimited. You make it sound like if you do not consume all your data from the Sprint network (even if you choose to offload) then all of a sudden Sprint smartphone data is not unlimited. That makes no sense.

 

If I choose not to eat dessert at the all you can eat buffet, but go to Baskin Robbins instead for that portion of my meal, that doesn't mean the buffet is no longer all you can eat, just because I decided not to eat every every possible bite there.

 

Robert

 

Understood....I'm not talking about forced offload either. Also not trying to say that if your not using data 24/7 then the data itself is not unlimited. I'm just wondering ...if the data was truly unlimited there would be no need to offload. If the data was unlimited then the source has to also be unlimited...which its obviously not...otherwise some wouldnt be trying to conserve. Maybe unlimited data is just marketing jargon. "Unlimited data" sounds a lot better than "Tier-less data" when trying to attract subscribers.

 

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 2

[koiulpoi]

I threw an iPod touch out the window once, It survived.

Electronic devices are surprisingly hardy. I saw an Evo 4G that got run over by a truck. The glass lens was a spiderweb, but the LCD was fine, and the touchscreen layer itself was more-or-less undamaged.

Maybe unlimited data is just marketing jargon. "Unlimited data" sounds a lot better than "Tier-less data" when trying to attract subscribers.

*pin pon*

Sprint is banking on most "unlimited" smartphone users not using more than ~2-4 GB of data a month. It is absolutely marketing-based. If everyone used their smartphones to maximum, "unlimited" capacity, the network would buckle and Sprint would be run out of business (which some would say is happening now). Similarly, they can market "no throttling" because they don't - your area simply slows down when too many people are using too much.

[Ascertion]

Two weeks into this month's bill and I've only used 300MBs of data as opposed to my usable 4gb/month. :-D

 

I've noticed wifi loads many things much faster, very noticeable on videos and pictures. Pandora, hard to tell...

[jefbal99]

I threw an iPod touch out the window once, It survived.

 

My old blackberry hit the wall more than once and survived. However, don't throw anything tethered. I was working a helpdesk and got pissed about a user, whipped my headset and it snapped back and whacked me in the face

[Hip2Bsquare]

I don't have a choice. Since the update a few weeks ago all three of our phones revert to home wifi when we walk in the door! That is a huge drag on my home internet speed. We have to manually turn off wifi on our phones, but they revert back as soon as they are plugged in to charge! It is not like we get 4G in the house anyway.

[S4GRU]

I don't have a choice. Since the update a few weeks ago all three of our phones revert to home wifi when we walk in the door! That is a huge drag on my home internet speed. We have to manually turn off wifi on our phones' date=' but they revert back as soon as they are plugged in to charge! It is not like we get 4G in the house anyway.[/quote']

 

What on earth are you doing on your phones that it drags down your home internet speed to use it on WiFi? And additionally, if your devices are such a huge burden to your home WiFi, then it is a huge burden to the Sprint network too.

 

Robert via Samsung Galaxy S-III 32GB using Forum Runner

[Boosted20V]

What on earth are you doing on your phones that it drags down your home internet speed to use it on WiFi? And additionally, if your devices are such a huge burden to your home WiFi, then it is a huge burden to the Sprint network too.

 

Robert via Samsung Galaxy S-III 32GB using Forum Runner

 

LOL, The more you hear, the more you realize caps are inevitable.

[Proxcee]

I don't have a choice. Since the update a few weeks ago all three of our phones revert to home wifi when we walk in the door! That is a huge drag on my home internet speed. We have to manually turn off wifi on our phones, but they revert back as soon as they are plugged in to charge! It is not like we get 4G in the house anyway.

Not sure this post was really thought through before it was submitted.

 

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