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Traditionally, data plans from wireless phone providers, whether they call them “unlimited” or not, usually carry a fine print “5GB monthly usage limit” somewhere in the terms and conditions. Some providers do nothing if you happen to exceed it, others will threaten to terminate your service, or charge you overlimit fees that quietly accumulate until the phone bill arrives in the mail. Wireless data providers limit consumption primarily because they don’t have the capacity to provide you with limitless access, at least not yet. But the paltry limits most providers set, with nasty overlimit fees for exceeding them, aren’t justified either. Most providers do everything but come out and admit you are only supposed to use their services for web browsing and e-mail reading, so control yourself.
Verizon Wireless has a complication, however. In the coming week, they are expected to unveil an HP 115NR Netbook with built-in wireless broadband capability designed to work on Verizon’s network. The Netbook will cost $199 after mail-in rebate, and your commitment to a two year service contract with a data plan priced $40-60 a month.
Verizon Wireless has never been the value leader in the wireless marketplace. Its data plans are not cheap, and their current data limits evidently did not test well with focus groups. Why pay $199 for a Netbook, commit to spending $1,160 to $1,640 over the life of the contract, before taxes and fees, for the data plan and Netbook, and ration your use to between 50MB on the $40 plan, or 5GB on the $60 plan each month? You can buy your own Netbook for less than $400 and go find your own Internet access somewhere else without a contract. You’d also avoid the very costly mistake of going over your plan limit, with a $0.25/MB overlimit fee.
When a company has an incentive to ease up on usage caps, such as finding a market for a new product, magically the way is seen clear. Did Verizon Wireless suddenly develop oodles of new capacity? No. Has a major technological innovation suddenly become available reducing their costs dramatically? Hardly. Is the company looking for success in selling a Netbook to customers with a data plan that won’t drive customers out of the store shaking their heads? Yes!
So Verizon Wireless has fired the first shot in what could eventually provide some relief from very low usage caps and very high overlimit fees for mobile broadband. With the advent of the Netbook promotion, Verizon Wireless will revise their 50MB plan to now provide 250MB of access, with overlimit fees now priced at $0.05/MB. The punishment price for exceeding your 5GB “deluxe plan” cap has also been cut, to $0.10/MB. It’s still expensive when compared to Sprint, which offers a 5GB data plan with overlimit fees locked at $0.05/MB, but an improvement over T-Mobile, which charges $0.20/MB for exceeding the 5GB limit.
The company that everyone is waiting to hear from is AT&T, which charges the most outrageous fees for exceeding the limit on its Data Connect plans. Exceed your 50MB plan there and pay $1.02/MB in overlimit fees. The 5GB plan is also punishing for those who exceed it, with a $0.51/MB overlimit fee. Few think AT&T will leave those limits and overlimit fees in place for long.
Wireless broadband growth has not been what it could be, and primarily because it remains too costly for many residential customers to hop on board and pay the $40-60 a month ticket to ride. A wireless price war on data plans, much like the one now underway on voice calling plans, could dramatically bring prices down and loosen up those caps. It helps when most Americans have a choice among six or more providers for wireless services, all competing for your business.
Other stories of interest:
- WHAM Rochester: Time Warner Eyes Return of Tiered Pricing Plan
- Time Warner Customers: In Your Future? $5000/$27000/$83000 Overage Bills
- WXII Triad – “For Right Now, Cap Plan Is On Hold” – Down But Not Out In North Carolina
- Frontier Communications Still Losing Telephone Subscribers, But Adds Data Customers
- Turbocharging Profits: Road Runner Ration Plan Breakdown
Cricket is now offering wireless 3G in some areas for $40/month. It sounds like an awesome deal compared to the other wireless providers. They have that 5GB limit too but all they say about is that they can “throttle” your bandwidth if you go over that limit which to me is a more reasonable solution and makes more sense.
[quote]
Plan Features
Wireless Network
Technology CDMA
Plan Type and Features
Calling area local coverage areas
Included Minutes
Connectivity
unlimited
Other Possible Charges
None
Additional Features
Save an additional $5 per month when bundled with a Cricket unlimited voice plan.
Contract Terms and Fees
Activation fee $25.00
Contract term None
Security deposit None
Carrier’s early termination fee None
Throughput speed may be limited if usage adversely impacts our network, service levels or exceeds 5 GB per month.
Requires new activation and up to $25 activation fee. Taxes and fees extra. Unlimited coverage not available everywhere; coverage maps. See Acceptable Use Policy for more information.
[/quote]
[url] http://www.mycricket.com/cricketplans/details/broadband [/url]
Upon looking at their acceptable use policy, they at least spell out what they deem as acceptable use vs. unacceptable use.
[quote]
Important Customer Information
For more information, refer to the Cricket Terms and Conditions of Service or speak with a Sales Representative. Service is subject to the Cricket Terms and Conditions of Service, which you should read before activating service. Plan is not available in all areas. See coverage maps for more details.
Cricket Broadband service may ONLY be used with wireless devices for the following purposes: (i) Internet browsing; (ii) email; and (iii) intranet access (including access to corporate intranets, email, and individual productivity applications like customer relationship management, sales force, and field service automation). Cricket Broadband service MAY NOT be used for any other purpose. Examples of prohibited uses include, without limitation, the following: (i) continuous uploading, downloading or streaming of audio or video programming or games; (ii) server devices or host computer applications, including, but not limited to, Web camera posts or broadcasts, automatic data feeds, automated machine-to-machine connections or peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing; or (iii) as a substitute or backup for private lines or dedicated data connections. This means, by way of example only, that checking email, surfing the Internet, downloading legally acquired songs, and/or visiting corporate intranets is permitted, but downloading movies using P2P file sharing services and/or redirecting television signals for viewing on laptops is prohibited. A person engaged in prohibited uses, continuously for one hour, could typically use 100 to 200 MBs, or, if engaged in prohibited uses for 10 hours a day, 7 days a week could use more than 5 GBs in a month.
For individual use only and not for resale. We reserve the right to protect our network from harm, which may impact legitimate data flows. We reserve the right to limit throughput or amount of data transferred, and to deny or terminate service, without notice; to anyone we believe is using the Cricket Broadband service in any manner prohibited above or whose usage adversely impacts our network or service levels. Anyone using more than 5 GB per line in a given month is presumed to be using the service in a manner prohibited above, and we reserve the right to limit throughput or immediately terminate the service of any such person without notice. We also reserve the right to terminate service upon expiration of Customer Agreement term. [/quote]
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Phillip, I posted something and it isn’t showing up. Also, there was another post by someone else and now it is gone too.
Usually, posts that don’t appear are caught by a spam protection filter and require manual approval. It’s part of our effort to keep our comments spam-free. Legitimate posts will get approval and appear usually within a short period of time.
How can a company advertise something as “Unlimited” but then set a limit at which additional charges apply? That seems like it would be false advertising or bait and switch at least.