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Verizon new data plans

RoadTime

RoadTime

Veteran Expediter
Owner/Operator
If your a Verizon customer most likely you have seen something about their new data plan roll out. As they try to play catch up with competitors, so far I'm not impressed.

Sounds nice. Roll over data (for one month), unlimited data (throttled down to 128kbps in safe mode), unlimited calls to Mexico and Canada. But is it?

I guess it would depend on your needs if this is actually a better plan then what you already have. For me, it looks like I would be paying more for less.

I almost always use up all my monthly data so a one month roll over has no use for me. But hey, I can have unlimited data after that. Really? Throttled down data to 128kbps? I don't know what this actually compares to, but my experience with my smart phone tells me this. 4G is pretty good. When I have to use 3G it is painfully slow to the point of not even being able to stay connected. And less the 3G has been useless.

So how does 128kbps compare to 4G? From some numbers I've seen, best I can tell it's a lot less then 4G. Verizon says it's good for checking email or a webpage. I have my doubts from my experiences with anything less then 4G that this would be a good experience.

So when I looked over the plans for me:
Roll over data- Not needed.
Unlimited safe mode data- Most likely unusable.
Unlimited calls to Mexico and Canada- Not needed.

I'm not seeing any reason to switch to one of these plans, what do you think?

Verizon overhauls its data plans
 
OntarioVanMan

OntarioVanMan

Retired Expediter
Owner/Operator
I've gotten the pop up on my VZ app for the new plan...and was curious....I don't need the speed reduction.and my 20 G's now are enough and my long distance plan is fine...and I am fine with using Lowes or HD for my extended viewing pleasure....and most Walmarts now have wifi as well....

BTW..shouldn;t this be posted in the tech forum?....
 
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Turtle

Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
128 kbps is certainly slow enough to make you want it to be in The Soapbox, especially if you use it for more than 5 minutes. If you think 3G is slow, 128 kbps will make you want to throw your device out the window and slit your wrists for good measure.

A high tech supper dooper fax machine transmits at 33.6 kbps.

Dial-up is 56 kbps. Kbps is kilobits per second. 8 bits equals 1 byte. So 56 kbps is 7 Kbytes, except in Dial-up World, 56k is like the speed of light, you can never go that fast. It's the theoretical max. The reality is your only going to get between 24-48 kbps.

128 kbps is 16 K bytes per second. And that's exactly what you get with throttled wireless broadband. And It's faster than dial-up by 2-3 times.

16 K bytes per second means that in 60 seconds you can download a 960K file. (it's actually a smaller file than that, closer to 930K, because of the data overhead in the TCP/IP packets, but it's 960K of data)

3G ranges from 200-300 kbps to an average of 600 kbps and a max on a really good connection with the stars aligned just right of up to 1.2 mbps.

600 kbps is 75 K bytes per second. A 960K file at 600 kbps can be downloaded in 12.8 seconds (and 6.4 seconds at 1.2 mbps).

If you're used to even a mediocre 4G connection at 5 mbps, which is 625.000 K bytes per second, you can download that same 960K file 4.2 times in one second.

To sum up, what you can do in a quarter second with 4G takes a full minute at 128 kbps.:confused2:
 
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Turtle

Turtle

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Retired Expediter
skyraider said:
two kbytes leave Chicago doing 50kbs, how long till they read India...lol
Click to expand...
A tracert between Chicago and India shows 11 hops with a total latency of 5300 milliseconds, so the answer is 5.3 seconds, assuming "read" is supposed to be "reach."
 
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B

blackpup

Veteran Expediter
Quick question ? How much data do the unwanted video ads use, that popup when viewing some websites. Is this serious datat usage ?

jimmy
 
Turtle

Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
Depending on how often you encounter them, autoplay video ads will eat up between 15-40 of your bandwidth. A small video ad uses 10x-15x the bandwidth as a full screen static image.
 
RoadTime

RoadTime

Veteran Expediter
Owner/Operator
Turtle said:
128 kbps is certainly slow enough to make you want it to be in The Soapbox, especially if you use it for more than 5 minutes. If you think 3G is slow, 128 kbps will make you want to throw your device out the window and slit your wrists for good measure.
Click to expand...

Thanks, that is pretty much what I thought. I'll pass on their great new plan ;)
Side note. I thought 3G was ok when I had a semi-smart phone. But on a modern smart phone, I can hardly get my apps to works and usually give up. Less then 3G, yeah I'd be looking for that knife :D
 
Turtle

Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
I'm still grandfathered in on the unlimited plan. I still have the Nationwide Talk 900 plan that gives me 900 Anytime minutes, for $59.99. If I ever go over the 900 minutes, it's $0.40/min. But I have the 5 most often talked-to numbers list on Friends and Family, so it's rare that I even go over the 200 minute mark. I have the Unlimited Data plan, which used to cost $29.99 but they added another $20 onto that for the privilege, so it's $49.99 now. I also pay $10 a month for Text, picture and video messaging, which I've never approached going over. So, my monthly total is $119.98.

I currently have 13 days left in my usage cycle. I am sitting at 51 minutes used and 17 texts used. I'm also sitting at 50.17 GB of data used. Last month I used 76.67 GB of data, and I'm sure this month will end up being close to that.

About a week or so ago a Verizon rep called me to tell me about Verizon's new and exciting plans, feeling confident he could get me on a better plan that was even cheaper than the one I currently have.

I told him, "Yeah, no, I reeeeeaaaaally don't think you can."

He said, "Well, let's see! I bet I can. You're on the 900 minute plan. That's an old plan. And you're paying $10 for 1000 messages. With everything, you're paying $119.98 a month! We can get you on a plan that gives you both unlimited talk and text, and 16 gigabytes of data, for only $90 a month! That will save you $30 a month!"

Me, :Yeah, that's not nearly enough data."

Him, 'Well, you could jump up to the 24 gig data plan. It's just $110 a month. Still a little cheaper than now, plus you get unlimited talk AND text!"

Me, "Take a quick look at my data usage history. I'm still on the unlimited data plan."

Him, "Oh, 76 gigabytes. Wait. Is that Megabytes? That must be megabytes. No, that's gigabytes! That's a lot of data!"

Me, "Yes, it is. And if I had the 80 GB plan it would cost me $350 a month. Still think you can get me on a better plan?"

Him, "I really don't think I can."

Me, "Told ya."

Him, "Thank you for being a loyal Verizon customer. Have a great day."

Me, "Thank you. Bye."
 
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RoadTime

RoadTime

Veteran Expediter
Owner/Operator
Warning to Verizon folks, don't make this mistake.

I burned through my data and got the usually notice and do you want more request.

2f587122e0809591efe67a32e92d6e48.jpg


I said yes, hey $5 sounded a lot better then $15. I've always just switch back to my regular plan afterwards. What I didn't consider or realize is, my old plan no longer exist. Bam congrats your on our new crappy plan and now if you reduce your data one notch you will lose that free gig you loved so much. Of course you already lost it sucker.
Well crap that $5 bucks wasn't such a great deal for me.

I could probably pled my case, just to hear that the plan is gone and I'm SOL. But I won't, I'll just grumble about it

So just be careful if your on another plan and don't want one of their new ones. I saw their new app and site is redesigned also taking away any old options.

Don't pull a RoadTime


Sent from my iPhone using EO Forums
 
fastman_1

fastman_1

Veteran Expediter
Owner/Operator
My Verizon plan is the very old unlimited everything, plus we get our phones thru the wife's law firm which hooks us up for a discount, the law firm pays 125.00 for our phones we pay the rest which is 35 bucks


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Turtle

Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
Verizon has been doing everything they can think of to get people off the unlimited data plan and onto a tiered plan. I'm still unlimited. A month or two ago they announced that the unlimiters who use more than 100 gigs in a month will just have their service canceled unless they go to a tiered plan. I think 74 gigs is my most used in month , but I'm keeping a closer watch on it now.
 
fastman_1

fastman_1

Veteran Expediter
Owner/Operator
Turtle said:
Verizon has been doing everything they can think of to get people off the unlimited data plan and onto a tiered plan. I'm still unlimited. A month or two ago they announced that the unlimiters who use more than 100 gigs in a month will just have their service canceled unless they go to a tiered plan. I think 74 gigs is my most used in month , but I'm keeping a closer watch on it now.
Click to expand...

I'm nowhere near that, I mean far far away from that, the most so far this year was 38 gigs


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