Wrong. Unlimited data is allowed now because the numbers worked out that they had lots of capacity but not a lot of high volume users. Now that there are a lot of high volume users, they have to provide some mechanism by which their network becomes scalable again.
So by your logic, our cable and DSL providers should have gone to tiered data instead of actually having half a clue and scaled their networks for all our Hulu and YouTube usage today which eats up gigs and gigs of data. Right?
I believe I understand your base logic, but to be honest, it doesn't make any sense. With technology as things evolve, expand, and get better, things get upgraded. This includes networks. If you have over sold your capacity you increase said capacity. You don't rip off customers by imposing artificial limits and keeping all the profits for your self. It's really basic supply and demand. They supply, we demand; We demand, they supply. In this case what we are demanding is currently what they supply, but they wish to change that where they are now demanding from us what they will supply. That's not how a free economy is supposed to work.
Gosh, I see. So they're responsible for your data usage. Who is "they" by the way? Is Verizon the one coding the software on your smartphone? Is Verizon the one who set your app's polling intervals at 5 minutes? Is Verizon the one who wrote the YouTube app? Is Verizon the one who is holding the phone downloading videos all day?
See, I believe that there's personal responsibility to be had. You don't have to rabidly check your usage. There are lots and lots of tools to monitor data usage and "any sane person" will very rapidly develop an internal baseline, just like you know when you decide to turn your air conditioning down to 65, your electricity bill will increase.
They are the major corporations who believe they can get away with constantly screwing over the customer. Verizon ARE the ones coding the software, actually. Who do you think customizes the firmware with apps like Blockbuster and the like. Sure, it's probably actually coded by the likes of Motorola, but it's based on specifications given by Verizon on what they want on their product, and how they want it done.
I'm not saying there's not personal responsibility, and personally speaking I have it. Can I, as a rooted user, obtain free tethering and stream gigs of data from Verizons network over my phone to my laptop? Sure. Do I? No. I don't see the benefit myself. If I can't do something on my phone, then I wait until I get home and do it there.
I'm well aware there are apps/tools/widgets/etc to monitor data usage. Point remains, we shouldn't have to. They sold us something, and are going back on their end of the bargain.
If you work in IT, you'll know that wireless data is orders of magnitude more expensive than data transmitted over wires.
I work in IT with wired connections. Wireless is not my area of expertise. What it costs to transmit data wireless is something I cannot comment on, nor will I. However, generally speaking what I've stated holds true in any field. If you cannot supply what your customers demand, then you upgrade until you can meet said supply. Digital media companies are the only ones these days who think they are some how above this, and try every way possible to nickle and dime their customers to screw them over. What surprises me more than that, is the fact the sheeple let them get away with it because they "need" it. *Sigh*
Our company is constantly upgrading and expanding so that we can meet the growing needs of our bandwidth demands, and the loads it puts on our servers. Again, by your logic that companies should not be compelled into expanding and upgrading I guess we should have just told our users, "Sorry, but you can now only visit this site 10 times a day instead of as much as you'd like." Right?
This is so absurd I don't even know where to start. Nobody promised you anything. You bought a service and they are supplying you the service. They didn't say that in 10 years the service would be the same. Gas prices used to be cheaper, and nobody promised me that would remain constant. Prices fluctuate and infrastructures adapt to meet needs. The entire world's economy runs on this fact. As resources become saturated, the cost to acquire them goes up.
I feel like I'm on another planet here. This is incredibly simple:
- Up until now, mobile data usage has been very low, which has allowed carriers to offer an unlimited amount of a fixed resource, because they had a reasonable expectation that "unlimited" would not exceed their capacity.
- Now that smartphones are saturating the market, data usage has gone up exponentially. Unlimited plans are no longer feasible for the prices they are offered.
Get mad about it if you want. It's wasted energy. This is an eminently reasonable thing for all the wireless carriers to do.
Actually, you're so very wrong. They ARE promising a service. What do you think the contract is for? They agreed to supply me with unlimited data, and I agreed to pay them for said unlimited data. What is so hard about that to figure out? Your gas analogy holds no water in the technology industry. Oil prices rise and fall, data is a static resource. While its finite in the capacity fibre, copper, servers, etc can handle, capacity can always be increased. The same cannot be said of oil as there's no way to make any more. Likewise, data doesn't cost $0.10 this week, and $0.15 the next.
Now that smart phones are saturating the market is no reason to pull unlimited data. It simply means its time to use all that money that your millions of customers are paying you and using it to continuing to build out your infrastructure. We have so much fibre in this country thats dark it's sad. Everyone (within reason) could have fibre to the home with 100mbit or more speeds and still not come close to saturating the bandwidth we have if we turned it on. However, they get away with this because they sell us 1/10/20/50mbit connections for $X/month. Connections which come complete with unlimited data transfer.
Even scaling the price up doesn't make sense. I'm still paying around the same amount monthly for my cable connection that I did 10 years ago, but its an order of magnatudes faster than it was back then. All while retaining unlimited transfer. It's because of infrastructure upgrades that allows this.
To sit back and defend the mobile industry for some how being above this basic law of supply and demand is insulting at best. I'm glad you're happy with how things are going, but I'd not be surprised to find that you're in the minority. I do, however, believe that it doesn't help my side of the fence when people are constantly rooting and tethering their devices so that they may download torrents, and other bandwidth intensive things 24/7. They are the ones that have truly spoiled this for everyone else, and I don't think we'd be here discussing this otherwise.
Anyways, this is how I feel, and this is how you feel. I'm not attacking you, and I apologize if it comes off that way. Everyone has the right to voice their opinion, and I am merely doing so. Even though I disagree with your opinion, I do respect it.
At any rate I'm done with this topic. I generally refrain from commenting on issues such as this because usually no matter how or what you say, it usually either sounds like a flamewar or turns into one. I guess this was the straw that broke the camels back, and I had to say something.
