What would you do if Sprint eliminated "unlimited" data? Poll thread.

[darrelldwllms]

I hope so, I don't see Sprint ending everyone's unlimited data plans, if they did, it'll be a disaster for Sprint.

 

 

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[joshuam]

To date, I don't believe Sprint has EVER forced anyone off of a grandfathered plan. Heck, there are probably still people on $30 SERO plans.

[ttwiitch]

The new future is not having unlimited so everyone might as well start getting used to it, but if you have unlimited keep it as long as you can!!

It might seem that way, but just like texts, and voice minutes, eventually it will have to be unlimited.

[travismheim]

It might seem that way, but just like texts, and voice minutes, eventually it will have to be unlimited.

No. Maybe in some other form with a high speed bucket and throttled speeds afterwards, but unlimited as it is now will not stay. It is not sustainable with the growth in data consumption. T-Mobile already caved and added a 21GB soft cap to their unlimited plan.

 

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[Fraydog]

It might seem that way, but just like texts, and voice minutes, eventually it will have to be unlimited.

Maybe all you can eat, but unlimited, as in infinity? No. There's limits to spectrum so of course there has to be limits to wireless data at some point.

[S4GRU]

To date, I don't believe Sprint has EVER forced anyone off of a grandfathered plan. Heck, there are probably still people on $30 SERO plans.

Heck, they even still allow them to subsidize their devices, even.

 

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[Rocket87]

Heck, they even still allow them to subsidize their devices, even.

 

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They can only stay on the $30 with a 3g or dumb phone. A lte or wimax device will force a plan switch to the sero premium which is $40 +$10 premium data.

 

It is still subsidized though.

[WiWavelength]

No. Maybe in some other form with a high speed bucket and throttled speeds afterwards, but unlimited as it is now will not stay. It is not sustainable with the growth in data consumption. T-Mobile already caved and added a 21GB soft cap to their unlimited plan.

 

The interesting piece to this is that plenty of users here at S4GRU, TmoNews, FierceWireless, etc., will tell you that 21 GB is "not that much," that it is "easy to use that much data."  Well, that shows the significant disconnect between wireless users and wireless network realities.  Because data is so abstract and ephemeral, people have little concept of what is fair and acceptable use of "unlimited" data for management of shared resources.  T-Mobile has just drawn that line in the sand.

 

AJ 

[dedub]

yeah the line says that ~21 gig is worth about ~$80 a month.

 

which comes out about $3.8 per gig.

 

Looks like everyone needs to start repricing their data buckets. 

[burnout8488]

They can only stay on the $30 with a 3g or dumb phone. A lte or wimax device will force a plan switch to the sero premium which is $40 +$10 premium data.

 

It is still subsidized though.

And some phones (My old Blackberry) could be on SERO-P for $40 but did not require the premium data. 

[S4GRU]

yeah the line says that ~21 gig is worth about ~$80 a month.

 

which comes out about $3.8 per gig.

 

Looks like everyone needs to start repricing their data buckets. 

 

That's cheaper per gig than I am paying for my 30GB AT&T Bucket.  Which is $130 per month.  Works out to $4.33 per gig.  Which I think is reasonable.  $3.80 per gig even more so.  I'd switch right now to a flat rate of $3.80 per gig, and I can use as much as I want but just pay for it.  And if I want to save money next month, I can use less.

[sbolen]

That's cheaper per gig than I am paying for my 30GB AT&T Bucket. Which is $130 per month. Works out to $4.33 per gig. Which I think is reasonable. $3.80 per gig even more so. I'd switch right now to a flat rate of $3.80 per gig, and I can use as much as I want but just pay for it. And if I want to save money next month, I can use less.

That would be awesome for a family plan. Especially if you could cap your kids. Heh.

[kojitsari]

That would be awesome for a family plan. Especially if you could cap your kids. Heh.

If you have access to the account on att you can set limits. I have a friend who gets his data shut off when he hits 2.2gbs used. I'd imagine all the carriers have something similar.

[WiWavelength]

If you have access to the account on att you can set limits. I have a friend who gets his data shut off when he hits 2.2gbs used.

 

 

AJ

[Fraydog]

If Sprint prices the Family Share bucket at $80...they're right at T-Mobile's "unlimited" pricing.

 

 

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[bkco14]

If Sprint prices the Family Share bucket at $80...they're right at T-Mobile's "unlimited" pricing.

 

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Until you go over the bucket and pay overages vs having speeds slowed. I would take unlimited with a cap vs bucket any day.

[Fraydog]

Until you go over the bucket and pay overages vs having speeds slowed. I would take unlimited with a cap vs bucket any day.

I do differentiate between plans with overages (which I think are bad) and all you can eat plans which are like unlimited plans but have prioritization kick in at some point on congested towers. I'll just say my hypothetical bucket would be 20 GB with 256 Kbps speeds once you cross the 20 GB threshold.

 

 

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[JeffDTD]

That's cheaper per gig than I am paying for my 30GB AT&T Bucket. Which is $130 per month. Works out to $4.33 per gig. Which I think is reasonable. $3.80 per gig even more so. I'd switch right now to a flat rate of $3.80 per gig, and I can use as much as I want but just pay for it. And if I want to save money next month, I can use less.

And the math putting Tmo at $3.80 a gig is flawed if we are comparing to the big two because of the required "line access fee" of $15 or more. Pricing the data portion only at Tmo is more like $65 or $3.09. That is the best pricing "per GB" in the industry- And just like truly unlimited at Sprint, hard to sustain if every user single bumped up against the soft cap. Reality will befall Tmo and Sprint users eventually, regardless of how irrational they are about how far "unlimited" should go.

 

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[S4GRU]

And the math putting Tmo at $3.80 a gig is flawed if we are comparing to the big two because of the required "line access fee" of $15 or more. Pricing the data portion only at Tmo is more like $65 or $3.09. That is the best pricing "per GB" in the industry- And just like truly unlimited at Sprint, hard to sustain if every user single bumped up against the soft cap. Reality will befall Tmo and Sprint users eventually, regardless of how irrational they are about how far "unlimited" should go.

 

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Yeah, and to compare I didn't include the $20 per line access fee on AT&T either. I was just comparing the data portion only, to get a per GB cost. Because those access fees are static, regardless of how much data is used. And the access fees provide no data in them.

 

But I certainly agree for the purposes of a full personal cost benefit analysis, one would have to consider those fees as well. Someone who uses 1-2GB per month would be effected much more with a $20 access fee per line than from a carrier who only charged $10. However, someone who uses 30GB may save much more going with a higher access fee per line and lower per GB cost. And an account with lots of lines, but light usage could get killed with high access fees.

 

But either way we slice it, I would love to see providers compete on a per GB price and we pay for what we use. And we can use as much as we need or want. And get rid of unlimited. Tmo is kind of setting it up this way with their cap, and makes the leap easier and easier.

 

It would be great to treat wireless like a commodity. It would help to make pricing more competitive. Because it would be much easier to see how much Verizon is gouging their customers per GB.

 

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[bkco14]

I don't think we can consider wireless a commodity until they are reliable. Think of this as a water company. Everyone pays for how much water they use. Great. But would you be happy if one day your water comes out of the faucet at a steady stream and the next day it just drips when you turn it on? Sure it still works, but will you be really happy if it takes you 5 minutes to fill up a pot to boil water?

 

People complain that the people who abuse the network causes it to not work right. What happens if they pay to use that much data? Can the wireless companies really make it so those people don't cause the network to crumble? There is only so much spectrum that can be used. So if someone is paying to use a lot of it and the companies are getting extra money, what can that money be used for? They can't buy more spectrum right? They can't have their towers pump more out if they don't have anymore right?

 

I think buckets cause more data to be used. I am on unlimited right now and with a family of 3 average 4.5 Gb a month. If I pay for a bucket of data, you better believe I would try and use that all up because I paid for that much and I would feel like I would be throwing money down the drain.

[AppleFanBoy]

Would I be barking up the wrong tree by suggesting using the ISP approach and limiting speed but keeping unlimited data or high soft caps. Something like 15 mbps max speed and limit of 50 GBs usage with either decreased speeds or pay extra for buckets beyond the 50 GBs. Would something like this make much of difference on congestion? My belief is that if you can't do what you want to do on a cell phone with a bandwidth of 15 mbps then you might just be an abuser.

 

 

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[bkco14]

I don't think the bandwidth of 15Mbps is a problem. I thought the whole problem was people using a lot of data. Heck, I would be happy with a reliable constant 2-3 Mbps since you can do really anything with that. Video and audio streaming works fine. I think in the end, capacity is the biggest hurdle for any of this to be reliable. Here in a 5x5 network, 37.5Mbps is the max right now we can get out of a tower. If 38 people are on it at the same time, we are now down to < 1Mbps per person. So, because of that, there is no way that anyone can say they will guarantee any sort of speed since the speed is dependent on how many people are using the same tower at the same time.

 

Also, I don't think using a ton of data is the problem or abusive because what happens if you are using that on a cross country road trip? You aren't abusing any 1 tower for that long at all. I think the an abuser is someone who is using 1 tower and trying to stream constantly because it is causing that 1 tower to not function as well.

Edited June 27, 2015 by bkco14

[WiWavelength]

Here in a 5x5 network, 37.5Mbps is the max right now we can get out of a tower. If 38 people are on it at the same time, we are now down to < 1Mbps per person.

 

Keep in mind that basically the only way to max out a 5 MHz FDD carrier at 37 Mbps for any significant period of time is if just a handful of users, all with excellent signal, are on the sector.  That is not a real world scenario -- outside of maybe 3am on some sectors.  Due to serving users with average to poor signal, too, the real world sustained max is reduced to the range of about 15-20 Mbps.

 

AJ

[AppleFanBoy]

I don't think the bandwidth of 15Mbps is a problem. I thought the whole problem was people using a lot of data. Heck, I would be happy with a reliable constant 2-3 Mbps since you can do really anything with that. Video and audio streaming works fine. I think in the end, capacity is the biggest hurdle for any of this to be reliable. Here in a 5x5 network, 37.5Mbps is the max right now we can get out of a tower. If 38 people are on it at the same time, we are now down to < 1Mbps per person. So, because of that, there is no way that anyone can say they will guarantee any sort of speed since the speed is dependent on how many people are using the same tower at the same time.

 

Also, I don't think using a ton of data is the problem or abusive because what happens if you are using that on a cross country road trip? You aren't abusing any 1 tower for that long at all. I think the an abuser is someone who is using 1 tower and trying to stream constantly because it is causing that 1 tower to not function as well.

I watched a video a while back that discussed how the nature of TCP/IP allows for unlimited number of connections and unlimited data transfer but as more connections are made means slower speeds for each connection. The way it was described that you decrease the slow down by limiting the max bandwidth of each connection instead of allowing each connection the full speed of the network.

 

 

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[sbolen]

I'd like to see a capped option in the 10-15Mbps range at $3/GB, and an uncapped Turbo option at $10/GB.

 

I would also like to have the option to make speed tests count for 2x data usage.