What everyone doesn't understand about the wireless industry

[Chelsi_Gamer]

I'll be honest, even though AT&T is a competitor of where I work, you guys need to understand something. Soft data caps for home internet ranges from 100-250GB a month. This is a soft cap because the physical data lines ran and the servers are designed to handle every single customer using these soft caps. Clearly most people don't come close.

However, wireless spectrum, like the 700MHz that the XLTE runs over has much much harsher limits. The wireless spectrum is not designed for everyone to stream Netflix as if they did it would absolutely crash the entire network. It's a limit that the wireless spectrum can handle. Now, over the last few years, there have been major overhauls to the spectrum and data transmission that is allowing company's like Verizon to add larger data packs for less because the network is slowly being able to handle more and more traffic.

So you get upset about the "throttling" unlimited data need to stop. The Networks cannot handle the abuse you put on it period. Seeing someone using 80GB a month is sickening because even if 20% of our customers used that much out Network would be offline most of the time. This isn't the company's being greedy or shady, it's them trying to keep a stable network while growing to help accommodate tens of millions of people.

[T.Vengeance]

"You people"....*leaves*

[Chelsi_Gamer]

"You people"....*leaves*

Fixed just for you.

[Clyne]

I understand it as, mobile phone networks throttle their customers because their servers can't handle the load that they are getting. 

[watts300]

Soft data caps for home internet ranges from 100-250GB a month. 

I specifically didn't go with U-Verse because of their caps.  

 

I don't have any TV service, so all of my audio-video entertainment comes from the internet.   I would hate having a cap.  Here's my usage. 

[Extingquish]

No offence, but if you can't sustain people using that much data, maybe you should upgrade until it's bulletproof

[KingDaddyDaniel]

I'll be honest, even though AT&T is a competitor of where I work, you guys need to understand something. Soft data caps for home internet ranges from 100-250GB a month. This is a soft cap because the physical data lines ran and the servers are designed to handle every single customer using these soft caps. Clearly most people don't come close.

However, wireless spectrum, like the 700MHz that the XLTE runs over has much much harsher limits. The wireless spectrum is not designed for everyone to stream Netflix as if they did it would absolutely crash the entire network. It's a limit that the wireless spectrum can handle. Now, over the last few years, there have been major overhauls to the spectrum and data transmission that is allowing company's like Verizon to add larger data packs for less because the network is slowly being able to handle more and more traffic.

So you get upset about the "throttling" unlimited data need to stop. The Networks cannot handle the abuse you put on it period. Seeing someone using 80GB a month is sickening because even if 20% of our customers used that much out Network would be offline most of the time. This isn't the company's being greedy or shady, it's them trying to keep a stable network while growing to help accommodate tens of millions of people.

That's fine as long as you dont tell me i have 4G LTE when I can't even connect to the front page of reddit (a mostly text-comprised webpage)

[QueenDemetria]

I got charged $47 for using 137Kb over my 2Gb plan on Verizon. I under stand the stuff from the OP, but I got pooped on real hard.

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/240628-post-the-highest-amount-that-you-had-to-pay-for-overusage/?p=3301253

[Swndlr]

well then they needa get workin on more powerful servers in larger quantities than there already are, i get thats easier said than done, but still... the future, ya feel?

[Chelsi_Gamer]

I understand it as, mobile phone networks throttle their customers because their servers can't handle the load that they are getting.

Mobile networks cannot handle the kind of traffic that physical cable can. They have become much better hence why you can get 30gb of data for 120, but still a ways off. The problem is the entitled population that doesn't understand that streaming Netflix over mobile is not something that the network can handle in mass.

[KingDaddyDaniel]

I specifically didn't go with U-Verse because of their caps.  

 

I don't have any TV service, so all of my audio-video entertainment comes from the internet.   I would hate having a cap.  Here's my usage. 

how did you get those graphs?

[Swndlr]

I got charged $47 for using 137Kb over my 2Gb plan on Verizon. I under stand the stuff from the OP, but I got pooped on real hard.

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/240628-post-the-highest-amount-that-you-had-to-pay-for-overusage/?p=3301253

i switched to at&t for this reason, mobile bill was through the roof for no reason, we tried to sort it out with them once and they fixed it, then they just kept jacking the price up more for no reason. i remember one month the phone bill was like $400 and we didnt even have any overages.

[Clyne]

Mobile networks cannot handle the kind of traffic that physical cable can. They have become much better hence why you can get 30gb of data for 120, but still a ways off. The problem is the entitled population that doesn't understand that streaming Netflix over mobile is not something that the network can handle in mass.

That is what my thinking is about this thing.

[watts300]

Hm..  maybe I didn't understand the original post.   It looks like he's talking about cellular plans.  Whoops. 

[Chelsi_Gamer]

No offence, but if you can't sustain people using that much data, maybe you should upgrade until it's bulletproof

Verizon has the strongest Network spending 6-8 billion a year in upgrading it. Not much more we can do as that's 10-15% of our gross profit.

[Jaybird]

Sometimes you just need to front load the utilities so cross the threshold when it becomes necessary. That said, popcorn time but for netflix would make a lot of ISPs happy but as we all know popcorn time can be used for illegal activity. So rather than embrace the future we deal with getting left in the dark. This is true for any company that wants to get ahead and grow. Higher risk, higher reward.

[watts300]

how did you get those graphs?

My service provider's website.  But it looks like I misunderstood what sector of the market the original post was about.  I thought he meant home internet service. 

 

That's what I get for not putting 2 and 2 together... and reading. hah

[Chelsi_Gamer]

I got charged $47 for using 137Kb over my 2Gb plan on Verizon. I under stand the stuff from the OP, but I got pooped on real hard.

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/240628-post-the-highest-amount-that-you-had-to-pay-for-overusage/?p=3301253

So I read your post and your a tad off. Plan changes have nothing to do with your contract. If you go over your 2gb and up to 4gb, unless it's backdated you will still have that overage. The problem is VZW bills 1 month ahead. So if you did it mid cycle they had to refund your old plan, charge the new plan and charge the overage. If you changed to 4gb half way through from 2gb, that means that for 15 days your limit is 1gb and the last 15 will be 2gv. So if you went over the 1gb the first 15 days it's still an overage. If they backdated it, you would of seen 47 difference still due to billING 1 month ahead changes.

[ChaosGoW]

I don't really care about excuses. I don't pay monthly for those, I pay monthly for mobile internet and phone calls. If when I sign my contract I'm told I get a service, I expect that service. Next time a decorator comes to paint your house, he'll say "We'll paint up to 100% of your house" but only paints the door frames. I know you put fine print in the contract saying you don't actually have to give advertised speeds but that doesn't make it ok. You've marketed yourself into a corner and that's why people expect more.

 

If you can't deliver sustained speeds, don't advertise them. Customers don't need to stop complaining about throttling and speeds being too low - companies need to deliver what they promise.

 

I get the science, but it's not the least bit relevant.

[Chelsi_Gamer]

I don't really care about excuses. I don't pay monthly for those, I pay monthly for mobile internet and phone calls. If when I sign my contract I'm told I get a service, I expect that service. Next time a decorator comes to paint your house, he'll say "We'll paint up to 100% of your house" but only paints the door frames. I know you put fine print in the contract saying you don't actually have to give advertised speeds but that doesn't make it ok. You've marketed yourself into a corner and that's why people expect more.

If you can't deliver sustained speeds, don't advertise them. Customers don't need to stop complaining about throttling and speeds being too low - companies need to deliver what they promise.

I get the science, but it's not the least bit relevant.

The problem is times have changed. Again the contract is in the phone not the plan. The plans, features and data have zero bearing on your phone contract. Back when the unlimited data feature came about, everything was much smaller. I take pics now that are 4-5mb each on my gs5. My first droid pics with about 100kb maximum. But now with 1440p streaming Netflix taking up 5gb per hour it's not even reasonable.

Edit: I have a 30gb plan and we've used close to that once on purpose and my speeds never dropped. The issue is, unlimited users that are abusing the Network on Verizon simply don't have priority access on congested towers for us anyway.

[DudeWazap]

I specifically didn't go with U-Verse because of their caps.  

 

I don't have any TV service, so all of my audio-video entertainment comes from the internet.   I would hate having a cap.  Here's my usage. 

Same here, I average 350GB of data usage a month.

 

Has your internet been upgraded to Twc maxx in your area yet?

[ChaosGoW]

The problem is times have changed. Again the contract is in the phone not the plan. The plans, features and data have zero bearing on your phone contract. Back when the unlimited data feature came about, everything was much smaller. I take pics now that are 4-5mb each on my gs5. My first droid pics with about 100kb maximum. But now with 1440p streaming Netflix taking up 5gb per hour it's not even reasonable.

Edit: I have a 30gb plan and we've used close to that once on purpose and my speeds never dropped. The issue is, unlimited users that are abusing the Network on Verizon simply don't have priority access on congested towers for us anyway.

What? My phone has nothing to do with my contract. I get sim only contracts and buy phones seperately because I upgrade them when I feel like it. I still get throttled.

[dizmo]

If you can't offer unlimited service, perhaps it's not something you should say you can provide?

[Joshua Ondangan]

actually things are kind of fine as they are.

 

in my country there are plans like

 

"Unlimited Internet up to 10mbps" then somewhere on the paper it says something like "for more information go look at their FUP (Fair Use Policy)"  and for anything lesser some show a cap of like 15gb per day something like that.

 

anyways people in other country should be happy they have a faster connection for a cheaper price although that means people might reach their cap faster.

 

edit: they should put something like internet speed up to 50mbps with a 250gb cap per month. and not put the cap somewhere else.

can't really be called unlimited if there is a cap.

[Psykomantis00]

Oh no you mean they would need to upgrade their network to make it usable to everyone they sold their data to?