Verizon Is Now Selling Unlimited Data In 30-Minute Increments (theverge.com) 56
Verizon has unveiled a new pay-as-you-go unlimited mobile data offering yesterday called PopData that has some significant strings attached. The option charges you $2 for 30 minutes or $3 for 60 minutes of unlimited internet data. The Verge reports: Think of it like a microtransaction or in-app purchase in a mobile game, where you can't enjoy the full benefits of a product you ostensibly already own or pay for without ponying up a few extra bucks. There does appear to be some legitimate reasons to want unfettered data access for a short amount of time. For instance, perhaps you know you'll be downloading large files to your phone like numerous Spotify playlists, or maybe you want to enjoy an uninterrupted stream of a sports game or Netflix movie without having to worry about your data cap. But there's no telling really whether this is a good or bad deal, as it complicates how we think of the value of data by blending a monthly bucket metaphor with that of a time-based subscription system. This wouldn't be such a big deal if customers could simply pay for unlimited data every month. Yet Verizon -- unlike ATT, T-Mobile, and Sprint -- does not offer customers a standard unlimited plan, and the company has made an effort to kick users off their grandfathered plans in the past.
Bleed The Junkies. (Score:3)
I love Corporations. They are the greatest evar. No conscience. No feelings. Just pure greed.
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UNICODE, MOTHERFUCKER (Score:4, Insightful)
DO YOU SPEAK IT?
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the math (Score:1)
3 for 1 hr....
24 hrs TIMES 3 = 72
72 times 30 =2160 a month for unlimited
NOW of coarse you dont need all that much nor are you to pay it but for a true unlimited 24/7 month this is what they are chargng and yea
BLEED the junkies.....
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3 for 1 hr....
24 hrs TIMES 3 = 72
72 times 30 =2160 a month for unlimited
NOW of coarse you dont need all that much nor are you to pay it but for a true unlimited 24/7 month this is what they are chargng and yea
BLEED the junkies.....
Well, hey, at least they'll have a few billion to make their stock look wonderful until consumers wake up.
"Unlimited" (Score:3, Insightful)
Unlimited (TM) bandwidth for a limited amount of time! The demographics say the majority of you have poor enough vocabulary skills you'll actually fall for this! Hilarious, seriously. I'd be laughing about it if I wasn't crying about it. What do the FTC and FCC even do these days?
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Unlimited (TM) bandwidth for a limited amount of time! The demographics say the majority of you have poor enough vocabulary skills you'll actually fall for this! Hilarious, seriously. I'd be laughing about it if I wasn't crying about it. What do the FTC and FCC even do these days?
"Unlimited" has become synonymous in the English language with "Non-throttled speed". Great sales tool!
Unlimited? (Score:5, Insightful)
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If I buy 30 minutes of max bandwidth - and you buy 30 minutes of max bandwidth at the same time - who is getting max bandwidth? Bandwidth is finite. You cannot give "max bandwidth" to anyone; otherwise no one else would have any bandwidth available to pull their porn from the cloud. Do you even communicate buddy?
Ooh, $72 a day (Score:2)
Where do I sign up?
but they don't need to test the timer to see if it (Score:2)
but they don't need to test the timer to see if it is working right and they can bill for overhead and rounding.
As a Verizon subscriber... (Score:1)
... I think this is a pretty good idea. The use cases are exactly that -- you know you're about to do something bandwidth heavy for a (relatively) short period of time, and you want to signal to your upstream provider this fact so that you can negotiate an effective resource allocation.
This really isn't any different from going to a metered to a port-based uplink for a certain length of time. Obviously, it's not truly "unlimited" (hint: nothing is), but if it's not being held against you and the speed is su
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Obviously, it's not truly "unlimited" (hint: nothing is), but
Then maybe they should stop using that word in their advertisement of services. Most other industries get called out if they outright lie in advertisements. Pretty sure there are even laws about it. Why the special pass for carriers and ISPs?
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Obviously, it's not truly "unlimited" (hint: nothing is), but
Then maybe they should stop using that word in their advertisement of services. Most other industries get called out if they outright lie in advertisements. Pretty sure there are even laws about it. Why the special pass for carriers and ISPs?
A better word would be "un-metered". This is a time-definite plan, however, so it's not very relevant... Unlike with a physical 100Mbps port that one might purchase, here you're going to be getting LTE speeds and competing with however many other users are on your cell tower. So yes, feel free to download away for your half hour. They probably actually don't care too much.
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Usually it's legal because they put in fine print clarifying what they mean by unlimited.
Re:As a Verizon subscriber... (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, I love* the way they do that.
* The term "love" shall in no way be construed to contain any positive connotation or endorsement, nor does it imply any emotional attachment to a faceless corporation who only cares only about sucking every last dollar from their customers.
Re: As a Verizon subscriber... (Score:1)
haha.
you know 10 bucks should get you unlimited 1mbit+ all month.
3 bucks a month for 386kbit/s all month.
(those are prices from finland from about 10 years ago)
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FTFY.
to bad that data does not show in real time to the (Score:2)
to bad that data does not show in real time to the meter. When will the clock stop and start and will they look at time that the data was used or the time it hit's the billing system?
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to bad that data does not show in real time to the meter. When will the clock stop and start and will they look at time that the data was used or the time it hit's the billing system?
This whole thing is hilarious. What it is - is "if you pay us this much, we won't run your data usage against your cap for X amount of time."
Calling it unlimited is just bullshit, and as you note, what happens if you aren't quite finished with a big cownload or upload. Oopsies! You get a tex telling you you blew your data cap.
So this is like .... (Score:2)
Scam alert (Score:2)
Yeah, it may be unlimited on your end but it'll be throttled to ISDN speeds.
Verizon has the best overall coverage of the US (Score:2)
Their business model has been predicated on the idea that some people will put up with anything, as long as Verizon gives them at least marginally better coverage than the competition. And lots of people have been paying them for the privilege of bending over in new ways for a couple decades now - so I'm not sure why anybody pretends to be surprised or outraged anymore.
We left Verizon back when they, unlike any other carrier, were refusing to enable Bluetooth on their phones. This was early last decade I be
How is this paying extra? (Score:2)
Think of it like a microtransaction or in-app purchase in a mobile game, where you can't enjoy the full benefits of a product you ostensibly already own or pay for without ponying up a few extra bucks
I'm a bit confused. If you don't have an unlimited data plan with Verizon, then how is it possible to think of this as a situation where you own something but can't use it without paying extra?
Newspeak (Score:2)
$2160 per month for unlimited (Score:2)
Yet Verizon does not offer customers a standard unlimited plan,
The option charges you $2 for 30 minutes or $3 for 60 minutes of unlimited internet data.
So it's a truly unlimited plan, but they refund you for the time you're not using it. Only $2160 per month.
Dear Verizon, (Score:2)
Time based? (Score:2)
blending a monthly bucket metaphor with that of a time-based subscription system
So is a month no longer considered a unit of time? Is it now a unit of distance?
But seriously, I was on one of the grandfathered in unlimited plans. Last time I went to the AT&T store with my wife, we were looking to cut the cost of our monthly bill. The rep looked at how much actual data I used every month over the past year and offered to cut the bill dramatically by putting me in a capped plan with a cap twice as high as my highest monthly usage.
So I took it. Money's money.
A recent Verizon TV commercial says I can get (Score:2)
"20GB of unlimited data". What does that mean? Is it 20GB or is it unlimited?
I think they have Trump writing their ad copy...
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I don't get the hate (Score:2)
From my quick skimming, this is an add-on available to all, yes? This is an offer of a burst of true unlimited data volume for a (limited) time period. Is the grief about it not being utterly unlimited, because there's a time limit? Or is it about the price?
It's a new offer, people can either try it if they have a need to download a ton of data occasionally, or not. If people don't take it, they may remove it, or lower the price to attract more takeup.
I can understand (being from the UK, where the mobile ma
market pressure (Score:1)
Market pressure is impacting them, they are moving there slowly. Sooner or later they will offer it I think. They could, just to avoid a few folks wrecking their network, say everyone can use up to some amount for free then after that you get 3g or pay per gig.
Unlimited? (Score:2)
Is this the same unlimited term that ISPs use in general now? So what is the cap?
I legitimately want this (Score:2)
I want this at my office too. Sometimes we need to upload a 15GB file to the cloud for a client and we only have 20mbps up. If we could spend $2 to uncap to the full 100/100 symmetrical for $2 we would definitely do that. Even if we did it once a day for 30 minutes that would be $60/mo instead if the $200 extra a month symmetrical 100 up would cost.