Verizon Says It Knows You Don't Need Unlimited Data (digitaltrends.com) 222
Ed Oswald, writing for DigitalTrends: While the wireless industry is moving back to unlimited data, one carrier is not. Verizon chief financial officer Fred Shammo told attendees at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference in New York on Thursday that his company doesn't think you need it, and slammed current offerings. "At the end of the day, people don't need unlimited plans," Shammo said. While this is not the first time he's said this -- in March he claimed unlimited data "doesn't work in an LTE environment," and in 2011 he helped Verizon move away from unlimited plans -- it's now an entirely different market.
Verizon can stuff it (Score:2)
I'm only level 23 and I need those pokemon NOW!
Re: (Score:2)
Pokemon go doesn't eat that much data.
Battery on the other hand...
Makes more sense (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Makes more sense (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not sure why you think so, it's pretty standard to pay according to what you consume when supply (capacity) is limited. It would be silly to say:
The entire concept of paying per multiple of gallons of gasoline is ridiculous anyway.
or
The entire concept of paying per multiple of hamburgers is ridiculous anyway.
Re: (Score:3)
But, I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.
Buying fast food on credit (Score:2)
But, I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.
"There are some things money can't buy. For everything else there's WimpyCard."
It's amusing to see how going into short-term debt for fast food has become the norm since the Popeye era.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: Makes more sense (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
How is the cost of data 0? The more data that people use in aggregate, the more capacity that Verizon has to build or everyone's data slows down. When the last mile is terrestrial, if they are willing to throw money at the problem, they can always build enough capacity. But cellular is different.
There is a hard limit on the amount of data that can be transmitted over a certain amount of bandwidth and only certain bands are well suited and allowed for cellular data. Verizon could build more towers and redu
Re: Makes more sense (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Bandwidth does not equal monthly usage.
If Verizon said "we want to implement a time-of-day based surcharge to help reduce network congestion", we could reasonably discuss the merits of using financial rather than technical means of throttling heavy users.
Charging me per GB of 2am Windows updates, however, counts as nothing short of rent seeking via regulatory capture. Every single un
Re: (Score:2)
The charge for data transit is pure profit for Verizon only if the network infrastructure they spend money on is pure loss. Obviously, Verizon isn't going to take that sort of financial hit without getting something for it, so they're going to have to charge their customers somehow. Verizon has to decide how much bandwidth to build, and the more people use the more Verizon has to supply and pay for.
So, how does Verizon decide how much to build? Mostly, Verizon will estimate what it needs to supply at
Re: Makes more sense (Score:2)
Re:Makes more sense (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't need unlimited data. I just need data that isn't 5,000% overpriced.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not sure why you think so, it's pretty standard to pay according to what you consume when supply (capacity) is limited.
I agree that for consumables it makes sense. I pay x dollars a gallon for water and n dollars per kilowatt hour of electricity at home. I would agree that "pay for what you consume" makes sense for broadband, both mobile and at home, if the charges themselves actually made sense. Even $0.05 per text is absurd, considering each message is a low-bandwidth near-tweet using a (formerly or mostly) empty emergency channel. The "true" cost per tweet is negligible. Similarly with broadband, the "true" cost of a gig
Re: (Score:2)
I know, right? Because, just like bandwidth, hamburgers come off an endless conveyor-belt steadily spitting out X million hamburgers per second and each one that doesn't get scooped up and eaten goes to waste forever!
Re: (Score:2)
Your 10/100 NIC had to be upgraded at cost to you.
Your 2.4 had to be upgraded at cost to you.
But your ISP does not need to spend money to upgrade to provide more bandwidth?
Re:Makes more sense (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
What is it that you are arguing again?
Peak time on satellite vs. cellular (Score:2)
Satellite Internet uses peak and off-peak pricing. Buyers of cellular service, on the other hand, have shown that they prefer simplicity in the billing arrangement.
Re: (Score:2)
Cell phone used to use peak and off peak for minutes. Things like $10 / mo for 20 peak minutes and 500 off peak minutes. Clearly designed to encourage off peak usage. The ratios started to change as cell phones began to be used socially and they couldn't do anything that extreme. Data is similar. Sure there are peaks but it is gently rolling hills not the sort of sharp drop offs that make a variable pricing scheme make sense.
Re: (Score:2)
Satellite's off-peak is typically the wee hours of the morning like 1 to 5 AM local time, when your devices are supposed to be waking from sleep and downloading operating system and application update packages.
Re: (Score:2)
These are public companies their spend for the networks are public documents. The cost of spending to create 3G and then LTE was many billions for each of them every year. They have huge debts from it and your job is to indirectly pay down the bond holders. It is not pennies on the dollar to provide when you count the capital cost. That's why most of the cell phone providers went broke.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
No, but you do *occupy* bandwidth.
Actually, it's rather akin to a small water company drawing from a large river - there's very little per-gallon cost to the water company, more total water delivery capacity available than there is demand, and the infrastructure requires constant maintenance regardless of usage level, and has to be built large enough to at least take a fair stab at satisfying peak demand. One option is certainly to simply charge a flat fee for water access, and that works fine if everyone
Re: (Score:2)
If the pipes you have are made to serve 1000 people and you have 100000 customers, there's something wrong.
As you said peak hour is peak hour nothing ca be done about ti the usage is not really elastic, so if congestion is a possibility then congestion there will be.
off peak the guy watering his rice fields is not bothering anyone since the pipes are there and filled with water no matter the usage. Besides that guy has an upper limit on how much water he can draw per second, a limit he cannot go ov
Re: (Score:2)
Not really - because the reality is that demand *is* elastic, and if you build out the network to provide 10x the bandwidth, you're going to have to charge 10x as much for access to support it. If your demand truly is inelasitic - real-time control systems, high-speed stock-trading, etc, then those costs are worth it and you buy dedicated access, but for most people they'd much rather pay 1/10th the price and just avoid video-streaming and other bandwidth-intensive uses during peak hours.
You're free to do
Re: (Score:2)
Financially you consume bandwidth. Telco "produces" x amount at cost y per much slices x up and sells it off.
Re: (Score:2)
You don't consume bandwidth.
No, technically you don't consume bandwidth in the exactly the same way you consume gasoline. But in his example, imagine that there was a magical gasoline fountain in North Dakota that produces an unlimited about of gasoline. All of that gasoline in ND doesn't do a bit of good for the drivers and shipping companies in Chicago. It does them no good until a pipeline is built. That pipeline isn't free to build, pipe, pumping stations, and valves all have to be purchased, then someone hast to be paid to p
Re: (Score:2)
Data amount = Unlimited.
Pay for a specific minimum speed, possibly with higher speeds than paid for if there is room.
They advertise the hell out of the speed. The speed is what everyone else is paying for.
Using bandwidth (Score:5, Insightful)
Um, the term "use" certainly applies in a relatively normal fashion - whatever data distribution hub I'm connected to has a finite bandwidth, and every MB/s I'm using is a MB/s no one else can use. Unlike much infrastructure, usage level doesn't really increase the rate of wear and tear, but you still have a finite resource to allocate at any given moment.
Re: Using bandwidth (Score:3)
Bingo, spot on. The addition of a time factor is what makes the consumption argument work and is the correct explanation. I was going to post this myself but you beat me to it. For any period of time there is n bandwidth available. If someone is consuming a fraction of n for some time (t), that amount of n is not available for anyone else for the duration of t, therefore it has been consumed.
Re: (Score:3)
Bandwidth isn't denoted in 'MB/s * t', it's denoted as 'MB/s'.
The former is usage, the latter is capacity.
Re: (Score:2)
Right. But unless you're buying the hardware for a dedicated end-to-end data link you're not buying bandwidth, you're buying *usage* of available bandwidth.
Similarly we use roads all the time - that doesn't mean we're "using up" the roads, it means we're using a percentage of the road's total capacity.
Re: (Score:2)
You are correct, the megabytes are not consumed. The bandwidth though (MB/s of possible transmission speed) certainly is - it's an instantaneous resource - in this second, there's only so many megabytes that can pass through a single network link (be it a cell tower, fiber a optic cable, or whatever). And used or not, that data-transmitting capacity will be forever gone after the second is over. You can't use yesterday's unused bandwidth to transfer data today.
Peer to peer file sharing is inapplicable -
Re: (Score:2)
I guess you never heard of leased lines. The concept is quite old.
You pay for having the line, not for using it.
Re: (Score:2)
I assume you mean direct fiber and not part of a T1 which is how this term is (was) generally used. And for that you pay the telco a monthly percentage of the cost of construction plus maintenance plus margin. That's what a bandwidth charge amounts to. Same concept.
Re: (Score:3)
Nobody buys by the GB on the back end. It's all based on a combination of commit and 90th percentile of utilization. Someone as large as Verizon probably does a lot of settlement free peering. So their cost is limited to the carrying capacity to handle peak demand.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh bugger off, my wireless plan costs as much as my broadband comnection. It has more latency and less utility. So no, I'm not paying more for less.
Of course it has more utility. You can use it away from home, such as in an establishment without public Wi-Fi or on public transit.
Re: (Score:2)
I would rather know what I am using and pay for what I use in at least a somewhat transparent fashion, than pay the exact same as all other customers and never really know what I am paying for. Verizon's system for me has been reliable and fast, and I pay for it, which I'm happy to do.
You may want to look at Project Fi, though I can't comment on the reliability.
https://fi.google.com/about/plan/
Re: (Score:2)
With Verizon, they don't even know how much data you're using [cleveland.com], but they'll be glad to charge for more.
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is the particular business model they use: impose a specific cap based upon the plan, and then charge large overage rates if you go over.
If it were just a matter of paying a base charge and then paying per GB (or similar) used, then it might make sense. Those overage rates, however, make the model problematic at best. Especially when they fail to notify [patch.com] customers that they're getting close to their quota.
Re: (Score:2)
Saying someone isn't "using" airtime on a cell tower is like saying someone isn't "using" time in a hotel room.
Overages/Throttling (Score:2)
Re:Overages/Throttling (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
I recently called about an account issue and they offered to "upgrade" my prepaid account. That is, they put me on the current offering that I was already paying for, rather than the old offering, which had less data. It looks like the "always on" data was part of the deal. I wish they'd just give you the best deal you're already paying for automatically.
Physics supports his hypothesis (Score:3)
Unlimited data requires infinite bandwidth which requires infinite power. We definitely don't need unlimited data.
We need max LTE bandwidth 24x7.
Re: (Score:2)
No, it needs data_rate * time_interval at most. If I can't use that it's not "unlimited."
But he has a point! (Score:5, Interesting)
People don't "need" unlimited data, what they need is "unmetered" data.
In a LTE environment, someone can saturate the hell out of the cell and thus render everyone in a one mile radius of it unable to use it. That is the tradeoff of CDMA-based technology (LTE is a CDMA technology) TDMA-based do not have this limitation because you're limited to a time slot. TDMA however doesn't allow for low-latency applications and the more users there are, it slows down for everyone equally. So TDMA forces carriers to actually have enough capacity, while CDMA only forces carriers to make cells small enough to not be blown away by one user monopolizing it.
At the end of the day, "unmetered" is what all carriers should be aiming for, and only differentiating their plans by bandwidth pipes. eg a GSM/LTE 5G path would allow users to pay for "voice","voice, text and data", or "voice, text, data, video" or "voice, text, data, video 4K" Someone paying for a "4K" connection and not using it with a 4K TV still gets the bandwidth of a 4K connection to use, but a "IPTV" offering by the same carrier would suck up all the bandwidth allocated. 4K would be kinda wasteful on LTE, but beside the point.
Same with landlines. It doesn't matter that fibre is in the neighborhood, you want to differentiate the plan based on what the user intends:
A) 4$/mo Home security (approximately 5Mbps, bi-directional, good enough for a single HD stream at 10fps)
B) 15$/mo Basic Internet (Asymmetric 25mbps down, 5 up, good enough for two 1080p HD streams at 30fps or one 60fps (ATSC is 19Mbps, ATSC QAM-256 Cable is 38.8)
C) 25$/mo Basic Internet Family (Symmetric 80mbps, good enough for two 4K streams or 4 HD streams, essentially "4 20Mbps streams")
D) 50$/mo Deluxe Internet (Symmetric 160mbps, 4 4K streams, good enough to have family members stream to each other at 4K television quality)
E) 100$/mo Professional Internet ( Symmetric 1Gbit , basically capacity for 25 4K channels, or 100 HD channels, simultanously, basically this option is "I'm hosting everything at home, the cloud hosting can bite me")
In the case of C,D and E, it's assumed that people would be doing backups over the internet, likely to other family member locations, if not a cloud service. Once you get over 100Mbps it becomes viable to do so. So if you live in Seattle and your family lives in New York, you could effectively use each other as a backup and cut all the cloud storage providers out of the picture.
So when you're on your LTE device, you can access the storage from either location or while on the road.
Captcha: asinine
Re: (Score:2)
"Courage" (Score:2)
Eh (Score:2)
What we don't need is fees _after_ we use a service. I'm fine with data caps, but there needs to be a popup where you confirm the charges for the additional data, and each additional charge, not afterwards when you get slammed with a $300 bill.
There's an oligopoly of wireless companies and they all primarily use a model where you get billed _afterwards_ for as much as they can trick you into using. And you always pay far more for "overages" than the same service cost if paid upfront. And of course they d
Re: (Score:2)
I have an AT&T account, and a family member pushed us over our 15 GB one month. I kept getting notifications: "you're getting close to using your 15 GB" "you've gone over your fifteen GB and we're charging you for another GB", "your'e getting close to using up the GB we just sold you", "you used it up and we're charging you for another one" I don't know how Verizon does it, but AT&T gives me plenty of warning about using excess data in time for me to do something if I want.
Re: (Score:2)
...So? It's been generally this way for 50 years. The fact that you have a recent and inadequate counter example doesn't mean you're right.
He's absolutely right (Score:5, Informative)
Nobody needs unlimited data, because nobody can use infinite amounts of data, they just need as much data as they use.
The problem is, nobody knows how much they need, because it's impossible for the average person to gauge data usage.
How much data does going to facebooks website take? Will I get the regular version of the site or the mobile version? Do I have a lot of pictures posted on my wall this time or not? How many times will I go there? Does my provider count facebook data against me or is it included in some fucked up social media exclusion promo? That's just one website. Throw in youtube, netflix, music streaming, mobile gaming, how is anyone supposed to fucking know what they need?
That's why everyone wants unlimited plans, so they don't have to worry about it.
Unlimited data, speed tiers (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
To go this way you would need some way to actually offer something resembling advertised speeds to all customers. Unfortunately signal strength would put some of them permanently in the lowest tier and then they would complain that they dont get what they paid for - technical limitations dont work for this kind of people (and actually why should normal user need to "measure" their own maximum net speed?)
Downloading web pages 1 MB at a time (Score:2)
it's impossible for the average person to gauge data usage.
In a comment to a post on the BlockAdblock blog, I suggested how to fix this at the level of the user agent. A browser can establish a 1 MB quota for each page view, pause the page's connection once the quota runs out, and give the user "Add 1 MB" and "Add 10 MB" buttons to resume downloading.
Re: (Score:2)
1MB? How about 10KB?
I'm sat here using a 160Mbps link and still resent downloading a full megabyte for a single web page.
Re: (Score:2)
And what about Apps then?
Re: (Score:2)
its okay because only you and a handful of others are doing that today. what happens tomorrow when everyone and their grandma are trying to stream netflix over mobile?
I'm not saying the marketing is disingenuous, i'm saying you need to be aware of a reality that unlimited data will not fly and throttling and other traffic shaping may become normal as we start tapping on the limits of wireless bandwidth. with that said, in less congested areas like suburbs, unlimited is likely already a reality since the c
Re: (Score:2)
Sure, you can see what you've used, but you have no idea what you will use.
If you had 100MB of data, how would you know how much of that it'll take to go to a random web page? How do you know that random web page won't just start feeding you the text to all the literary works ever created, over and over again?
How about one day the administrators of a website you frequent decide to put large streaming videos on their page one day. Now you just used up a bunch of your monthly allowance.
It's impossible for use
No one would ever want to buy (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If you work from home, get fiber, cable, or DSL. If you work from a seat on the city bus, as I often do, then download the builds before you leave home, and schedule video conferences for when you are home. If you are trying to use cellular to work from home in a rural area where fiber, cable, and DSL are unavailable, move.
Re: (Score:2)
Do they say "sustained speed" in the ads? No. They say "fast".
It's a good idea, even if he's lying. (Score:2)
I'm with Shamu, here. Pay for what you use, instead of trying to squeeze an "unlimited" square peg into a finite round hole.
So Verizon just needs to bill $0.001 for every MB used, and everyone would be happy. No bullshit about tiers, overages, etc. If you're on WiFi all month, your cell bill would be $0. After all... "At the end of the day, carriers don't need tiered plans." Tiered data just "doesn't work in an LTE environment."
That leaves some paperwork/billing issues, but they're easily solved by on
Re: (Score:2)
The exact price is largely irrelevant to the point.
I may not need it, but I want it (Score:2)
Unless Verizoncan offer a metered plan with SIGNIFICANTTLY HUMONGUS savings compared to the unlimited competition, I'll choose unlimited any time.
Otherwise, the first time I slip up with an OTA update, the choice of a slightly more expensive unlimited plan will pay for itself.
Besides, peace of mind has no price.
Besides, is more easy to do our financial planning with a constant quantity than a variable one.
Besides, who knows what services can catch my eye tomorrow, either as a passing fad (leading to a coupl
It's not an issue of what people *need*.... (Score:2)
It is what they find convenient or desirable, which is to use the service to the capacity that is being offered without concern about the details of the frequency or amount one is using it, and not getting surprised later on with higher overage charges than one was expecting.
I have unlimited nationwide roaming and long distance on my cell phone plan, and it's kinda nice to be able to freely use my phone wherever I am without worrying about any long distance charges that would otherwise apply.
With so-ca
That's Cool (Score:2)
I'll settle for Kbps x 2.6 Gb per month.
You know, we could just take it away from them (Score:2)
Of course I don't need unlimited data (Score:2)
Frankly, I don't need data period. I am around WiFi most of the time and can download music to listen to while driving.
However, I want unlimited data and selling people the things that they want is how capitalism works. Enjoy seeing T-mobile erode your market share.
Re: (Score:2)
I am around WiFi most of the time and can download music to listen to while driving.
And you pay a lot of money for that car insurance. My cousin doesn't drive because when he shopped for car insurance, he got quotes that by themselves are more expensive than a monthly bus pass, even without counting fuel and maintenance.
Point is that a lot of people ride the bus, and they expect to use that time productively.
Mobile Data and WiFI (Score:2)
Verizon and the rest assume that nobody needs that much data because the phone companies make you pay out the ass for any kind of reasonable mobile data. So I never use it unless in an emergency or trying to get a bus schedule (trackthet.com works quite well) in Boston. I'm halfway into my data plan and I've used 249MB for the month. I'll use WiFi or go without.
It doesn't matter what service - vzn, t-mobile, sprint, whatever. I'll only use their mobile data under duress.
4G is useless.
--
BMO
Re: (Score:2)
You should look at Cricket. I have their basic plan, $35/mo on autopay; unlimited talk and text, and 2.5GB of 4G data over AT&T towers. Now, that data is limited to something like 8Mbps I think, which is plenty fast for me, and if I ever hit the limit (I never have, but my kids have on theirs) I'll be throttled to 128kbps which is still enough to stream Pandora or run Waze. I know exactly how much I'm going to be paying each month, I can use whatever unlocked GSM phone I want, and i can switch at the dr
Let's limit CFO pay and bonuses, see how it works. (Score:2)
Hey there Mr. CFO. Time for some lessons in business. First of all, customers don't like to be told what they need and don't need. If demand exists, you provide. Or you lose customers to those who are willing to listen to demand.
The more critical lesson here is humans don't like limits. Perhaps this would be more obvious to you if your Board of Directors suddenly announced salary and bonus caps for all executives at half your current rate. You know, because one "doesn't need" to be paid more than they
Verizon Will Bleed Customers (Score:2)
Fine, then let me keep what I pay for. (Score:2)
Let me keep what I don't use then. If I used 2gb of my 4gb, let me rollover the 2 remaining to the next month and so on and so forth. If in 3 years I have 50GB free so be it, I paid for it.
No, what I need is billing simplicity. (Score:2)
That's why I prefer unlimited data. It's not because I plan on consuming unlimited amounts of it, but I do want to be able to go to work, plug in the headphones, and not have to think about my data plan when I decide if I want to stream music or listen to music I already bought.
Companies can make up what I "need", but the bottom line is that if your competitor offers a service that makes me happier, as in same quality and I never have to think about billing again, then I'm not your customer anymore.
if people don't need it, (Score:2)
Another reason I don't have Verizon .... (Score:2)
I was once a Verizon customer, many years ago. (Actually, I started off with AmeriTech who they took over.) Back then, it was all about your analog cellular minutes per month in your plan. Even then, Verizon became unworkable for me because as I used my phone heavily for business and personal use, I kept racking up more minutes of usage in a month than my plan had. Overages were billed at something outrageous like 25 cents per minute.
I called Verizon's customer service at one point, saying basically; "He
Rock and a hard place (Score:2)
There's really no mystery to this: Verizon is sticking to that unconvincing party line, because they're between the proverbial rock and a hard place. The restrictions they agreed to when they purchased their Block C spectrum license state that they're not permitted to restrict the ways in which you use your data connection on their wireless network; if you want to tether your BitTorrent PC to your Verizon Wireless cell phone and let it saturate that connection 24/7, they can't stop you -- they quite literal
Then there is no need to limit the data (Score:2)
If you don't need unlimited data (hint: It's true. You may need a lot of data, but with a limited bandwidth you cannot even use unlimited data), they don't need to limit it, as you won't use it anyway.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, you do have to think about what people need, if you want to keep them as customers. You need to address both wants and needs, and sometimes its a bit like juggling chainsaws while riding a unicycle.
That said, I hate mobile carriers. They are the scum of the Earth. The one really great thing about unlimited data plans is it makes it a snap to compare prices. Knowing what I know about carriers from years of experience I'll bet that's part of Verizon's reluctance; they HATE being in a commodity busines
Re:Nothing is unlimited (Score:5, Insightful)
The issue really isn't "unlimited data". The real issue is people would like to just go about their business and not have to constantly worry that they are "using too much".
Re: (Score:2)
And how people are supposed to do that if its illegal to compete with em in certain places?
Re: (Score:2)
You can still do without cellular data altogether, instead relying on home Internet, Wi-Fi hotspots open to the public,* and application support for offline use. Then you can use a flip phone for calls, or (on GSM carriers) you can buy a voice-only SIM and activate it online before inserting it into your compatible smartphone.
* Availability varies by location and depends on applicable liability law *cough*Störerhaftung*cough*.
Re: (Score:2)
They also said you don't need contracts anymore, but anyone who's twisted the arm of a Verizon rep knows the loyalty program for customers of 10 years+ are eligible for 2 year contracts at heavily discounted prices with enough data for the average user. 65 bucks for me with 5gb monthly.
If only it wasn't Verizon... because the way they've dicked with my bills over the years and required numerous angry calls to keep them in line has gotten pretty exhausting. They are one of the most dishonest companies I've ever dealt with besides Comcast and if it wasn't for the loyalty discount I would be done with Verizon by now.
Their prepaid 5GB plan is only $60/month, so I'm not sure you're getting a heavy discount on your $65 plan. Oh and you get 1GB "free" if you set up auto pay so it's $60/month for 6GB.
Re: (Score:2)
Could be a Windows phone?
Re: (Score:2)
This is part of the reason I got off of Verizon. First reason: I got 4x the data. Second reason: Mexico and Canada free calling. Third reason: I got an additional line for $80 less than what I was paying. I do miss Verizon's network, which has coverage in areas I sometimes go where nobody else has any coverage (such as my parent's home towns in South Dakota). Aside from that both AT&T and T-Mobile work great (I have one for home provider, one for my work phones - and yes, that's plural).
Re: (Score:2)
In other words, if everyone refrains from doing something you personally disapprove of, costs will go down.
Re: (Score:2)
Whoo! I can get a T1 if I just spend a few thousand dollars for installation and then a few hundred a month for a measly 1.5Mbps that might be able to do a single 480P youtube stream.
Not all of us have options If I could get any type of wired/fiber connection at home I'd have that instead.
Re: (Score:2)
How do you recommend that people "Get a real internet connection" that is useful while, say, riding public transit to and from work?
Re: (Score:2)
I pay for a real Internet connection (40 Mb/s currently; if that proves insufficient I'll upgrade). It's pretty reliable, but the DSL I had before that wasn't, and there might be a couple of days without home ISP service. Being able to tether during those days was very convenient.
Re: (Score:2)
But we have that here in the US too. 45Mbps in the garage 75mbps if I go stand on top of the propane tank.
That's pretty quick. What do you consider lightning fast?
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, that is quick, Interesting. I've often found responsiveness slower in US, e.g. bringing up a google map.
Just went to fast.com on my phone, pulled 86Mbps at my desk (saw it spike to 94).
I don't have any propane tanks to climb on I'm afraid.
Wonder if it's a case of responsiveness rather than throughput? 45Mbs is perfectly fine. Probably depends on how densely populated the area you're in is as well. I'm in Auckland, but not the CBD.
I'll be back in the states in a couple of weeks (Virginia then Oklahoma)
Re: (Score:2)
Sallisaw oklahoma home of the states first munifiber network. It doesn't go over 50MBps synchronous but hey it was the first.
It doesn't reach out of the city limits though.
ime cellular speeds are better out of town.
Re: (Score:2)
$15 per GB over...